comedian

comedy +‎ -ian. From Middle French comédien, from comédie (“comedy”).

• (US) IPA^(key): /kəˈmiːdi.ən/

• Audio (Southern England):

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comedian

Wikipedia

comedian (plural comedians) (feminine: comedienne)

1. An entertainer who performs in a humorous manner, especially by telling jokes.

   Synonyms: comic, laughsmith

2. (by extension) Any person who is humorous or amusing, either characteristically or on a particular occasion.

   Synonyms: card, cutup, gagster, joker, wag, wit

3. (dated) A person who performs in theatrical plays.

   Synonyms: actor, player, thespian

   Coordinate term: tragedian

   • c. 1606–1607 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Anthonie and Cleopatra”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene ii]:

     […] the quick comedians
     Extemporally will stage us, and present
     Our Alexandrian revels;

   • 1714, Susanna Centlivre, The Wonder, London: E. Curll and A. Bettesworth, Preface,^[1]

     I Don’t pretend to write a Preface, either to point out the Beauties, or to excuse the Errors, a judicious Reader may possibly discover in the following Scenes, but to give those excellent Comedians their Due, to whom, in some Measure the best Dramatick Writers are oblig’d.

   • 1755, George Colman, The Connaisseur‎^[2], volume 1, London: R. Baldwin, page 1:

     When a Comedian, celebrated for his excellence in the part of Shylock, first undertook that character, he made daily visits to the center of business, the ’Change, and the adjacent Coffee-houses; that by a frequent intercourse and conversation with “the unforeskinn’d race,” he might habituate himself to their air and deportment.

   • 1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 51, in Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848, →OCLC:

     Becky, the nightingale, took the flowers which he threw to her and pressed them to her heart with the air of a consummate comedian.

4. (obsolete) A writer of comedies.

   Coordinate term: tragedian

   • 1644, John Milton, Areopagitica; a Speech of Mr. John Milton for the Liberty of Unlicenc’d Printing, to the Parlament of England, London: [s.n.], →OCLC, page 5:

     Neither is it recorded that the writings of those old Comedians were supprest, though the acting of them were forbid;

   • 1783, Hugh Blair, Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, London: Whitestone et al., Volume 3, Lecture 47, p. 377,^[3]

     […] the Dramatic Author, in whom the French glory most, and whom they justly place at the head of all their Comedians, is, the famous Moliere.

• funnyman/funnywoman

• (male comedian): comedian (male and female)

• (comedian, male and female): comedian (male), comedienne (female)

• prop comedian

• → German: Comedian
• → Indonesian: komedian

• daemonic, demoniac, dæmonic, midocean

Borrowed from French comédien. By surface analysis, comedie +‎ -an.

comedian m (plural comedieni)

1. comedian