RIDICULE • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Ridicule

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/rˈɪdəkjˌul/ Listen

noun

Ridicule n.

1.

An object of sport or laughter; a laughingstock; a laughing matter. "(Marlborough) was so miserably ignorant, that his deficiencies made him the ridicule of his contemporaries." "To the people... but a trifle, to the king but a ridicule."

2.

Remarks concerning a subject or a person designed to excite laughter with a degree of contempt; wit of that species which provokes contemptuous laughter; disparagement by making a person an object of laughter; banter; a term lighter than derision. "We have in great measure restricted the meaning of ridicule, which would properly extend over whole region of the ridiculous, the laughable, and we have narrowed it so that in common usage it mostly corresponds to "derision", which does indeed involve personal and offensive feelings." "Safe from the bar, the pulpit, and the throne, Yet touched and shamed by ridicule alone."

3.

Quality of being ridiculous; ridiculousness. (Obs.) "To see the ridicule of this practice."

Synonyms: Derision; banter; raillery; burlesque; mockery; irony; satire; sarcasm; gibe; jeer; sneer; ribbing. Ridicule, Derision, mockery, ribbing: All four words imply disapprobation; but ridicule and mockery may signify either good-natured opposition without manifest malice, or more maliciously, an attempt to humiliate. Derision is commonly bitter and scornful, and sometimes malignant. ribbing is almost always good-natured and fun-loving.

verb

Ridicule v. t. (past & past part. ridiculed;pres. part. ridiculing) To laugh at mockingly or disparagingly; to awaken ridicule toward or respecting. "I 've known the young, who ridiculed his rage."

Synonyms: To deride; banter; rally; burlesque; mock; satirize; lampoon. See Deride.

adjective

Ridicule adj. Ridiculous. (Obs.) "This action... became so ridicule."

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Etymology of 'Ridicule'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Ridicule" Quotes from Famous Books

... that old sledge was not a game of chance! There was the broadest sort of a smile all over the faces of that sophisticated audience. The judge smiled with the rest. But Sturgis maintained a countenance whose earnestness was even severe. The opposite counsel tried to ridicule him out of his position, and did not succeed. The judge jested in a ponderous judicial way about the thing, but did not move him. The matter was becoming grave. The judge lost a little of his patience, and said the joke had gone far enough. Jim Sturgis said he knew of ...

— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... his self-control; he spoke with a quietness which made Katharine rather anxious that he should explain himself, but at the same time she wished to annoy him, to waft him away from her on some light current of ridicule or satire, as she was wont to do with these intermittent young ...

— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf

... had juster cause for his wrath. Consequently it came to pass that he himself committed against himself all those outrages for which he was wont to chastise other people on the ground of impiety; and he likewise became subject to no little ridicule. For, if persons denied having spoken certain phrases, he, by asserting and taking oath that it had been said, wronged himself with greater show of reality. For this reason some suspected that he was bereft of his senses. Yet he was not generally ...

— Dio's Rome, Vol. 4 • Cassius Dio

... something solid in aid of the credit of the paper circulation; and much has been said of its utility and its elegance. I mean the project for coining into money the bells of the suppressed churches. This is their alchemy. There are some follies which baffle argument, which go beyond ridicule, and which excite no feeling in us but disgust; and therefore I ...

— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... God chastiseth you for violating the five precepts, how hath he raised up the Franks who ridicule them? If he governeth the earth by the Koran, by what did he govern it before the days of the prophet, when it was covered with so many nations who drank wine, ate pork, and went not to Mecca, whom he nevertheless ...

— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney

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