RIDICULE • E-FREE TRANSLATION.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

... foreign element mincing their "pidgin" English have given the Bowery an unenviable reputation, but there are just as good speakers of the vernacular on the Bowery as elsewhere in the greater city. Yet every inexperienced newspaper reporter thinks that it is incumbent on him to hold the Bowery up to ridicule and laughter, so he sits down, and out of his circumscribed brain, mutilates the English tongue (he can rarely coin a word), and blames the ...

— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin

... made in so noble a spirit certainly does not deserve the ridicule that, in our own day, has sometimes been lavished upon it. Curiously, indeed, one of the most contemptuous of these criticisms has been recently made by one of the most strenuous defenders of orthodoxy. No less eminent a standard-bearer of the faith than the Rev. ...

— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White

... bundle; astonishment, anger, and self-ridicule made an emotion too strong to stand under. So this was all his Machiavellian scheming had achieved—to bring about the very marriage it was meant to avert! He had dug a pit and fallen into it himself. All this would indeed amuse Rozenoffski and ...

— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill

... dejected Virtue nobly rise Above the towering pitch of splendid Vice; To make pale Vice, abash'd, her head hang down, And, trembling, crouch at Virtue's awful frown. Now arm'd with wrath, she bids eternal shame, 320 With strictest justice, brand the villain's name; Now in the milder garb of ridicule She sports, and pleases while she wounds the fool. Her shape is often varied; but her aim, To prop the cause of Virtue, still the same. In praise of Mercy let the guilty bawl; When Vice and Folly for correction call, Silence the mark of weakness justly ...

— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill

... of a science there is no speculation so absurd as not to merit examination. The most remote and fanciful explanations of facts have often been found the true ones; and opinions which have in one century been objects of ridicule, have in the next been admitted among the elements of our knowledge. The physical world teems with wonders, and the various forms of matter exhibit to us properties and relations far more extraordinary than the wildest fancy could have conceived. Human reason stands appalled before this ...

— The Martyrs of Science, or, The lives of Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler • David Brewster

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