Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun One who performs on a tightrope or a slack rope.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A performer on a stretched rope; a rope-walker or rope-dancer.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A ropewalker or ropedancer.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun tightrope walker

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun an acrobat who performs on a tightrope or slack rope

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[From Latin fūnambulus : fūnis, rope + ambulāre, to walk; see ambhi in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From French funambule or its source, Latin funambulus, from funis ‘rope’ + ambulare ‘walk’.

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Examples

  • It begins by referring to the “funambulist” at the heart of the novel.

    Beating the rush on a National Book Award winner « A Progressive on the Prairie 2009

  • ~~~~~~~French Vocabulary~~~~~ tchatche (tchatcher) = to chat; la brocante (f) = second-hand goods, fleamarket; le brocanteur (m) = seller at a fleamarket; portugais = Portugeuse; français = French; le funambulist = tightrope walker; le pichet = pitcher; le papier (m) à bulles = plastic wrap with "bubbles"

    Brocante / Antiques 2010

  • Having looked in up, in retrospect “funambulist” sounds far more interesting than the common term [3] most people use.

    A Progressive on the Prairie » Beating the rush on a National Book Award winner » Print 2009

  • It begins by referring to the “funambulist” at the heart of the novel.

    A Progressive on the Prairie » Beating the rush on a National Book Award winner » Print 2009

  • ~~~~~~~French Vocabulary~~~~~ tchatche (tchatcher) = to chat; la brocante (f) = second-hand goods, fleamarket; le brocanteur (m) = seller at a fleamarket; portugais = Portugeuse; français = French; le funambulist = tightrope walker; le pichet = pitcher; le papier (m) à bulles = plastic wrap with "bubbles"

    Characters 2009

  • Having looked in up, in retrospect “funambulist” sounds far more interesting than the common term most people use.

    Beating the rush on a National Book Award winner « A Progressive on the Prairie 2009

  • It's an extraordinary quality bartenders have; a bar or, in this case, a lounge, can be quite adverse and hectic and easily become chaotic, yet bartenders - good bartenders, that is, go about the storm of hands and impatient glares and fidgets with a frightful calm, riding a teetering wire between cordiality of social obligation and quickness and precision of hand with the balance of a world-class funambulist.

    Grant Whitney Harvey: Moonshadows: Part 1 2009

  • That the scion of one of the oldest-established funambulist families in the land should come to this, should give up this gay life of sawdust, music, sequins, and romance to become a bean-counter.

    Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine 2004

  • That the scion of one of the oldest-established funambulist families in the land should come to this, should give up this gay life of sawdust, music, sequins, and romance to become a bean-counter.

    Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine 2004

  • The bow (like the funambulist with the soles of his slippers fresh chalked) kept glancing on and off, till we hoped he would be off altogether and break his neck; and now the least harsh and grating of the cords snaps up in the fiddler's face, and a crude one is to be applied; and now -- but what is the use of pursuing the description?

    Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. Various

Comments

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  • The kind of ambulist you want at your party. Especially a cool guy like this!

    December 8, 2009