zany

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English

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The clown brothersAlbert,FrançoisandPaul Fratelliniof the famous ItalianFratellini familyin 1932

Etymology

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FromMiddle Frenchzani,zanni,fromItalianzanni(a kind of masked clown character),fromZanni,a dialectal form ofGiovanni.DoubletofZanni,John,andGiovanni.

Pronunciation

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Adjective

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zany(comparativezanier,superlativezaniest)

  1. Unusualandawkwardin a funny,comicalmanner;outlandish;clownish.
    • 1986,John le Carré,A Perfect Spy:
      And I will admit now but never then that, more than once, listening to the Viennese chattering theirzanyGerman on the pavements, or taking himself to one of the struggling small theatres that were cropping up in cellars and bombed houses...
    • 1999,Alyn Shipton,“Gillespiana”, inGroovin' High: The Life of Dizzy Gillespie,Oxford:Oxford University Press,→ISBN,page293:
      Press articles emphasized his [Dizzy Gillespie's] ambassadorial role and drew attention to the paradox that he was a shrewd musician and leader despite hiszanyimage.
    • 2000,Alan H. Levy,Rube Waddell: The Zany, Brilliant Life of a Strikeout Artist,Jefferson, N.C.: London:McFarland & Company,→ISBN,page241:
      When playing forConnie Mack,Rube [Waddell]'s pattern after one of hiszanyoutbursts usually involved promises of good behavior and a spurt of excellent pitching.
    • 2013,William Paul, “No Escaping the Depression: Utopian Comedy and the Aesthetics of Escapism inFrank Capra'sYou Can't Take it with You(1938)”, in Andrew Horton, Joanna E. Rapf, editors,A Companion to Film Comedy,Chichester, West Sussex:John Wiley & Sons,→ISBN,page280:
      This runs counter to the play, where Grandpa is always benignly indulgent of all hiszanyprogeny and their equallyzanyspouses, and is even somewhatzanyhimself.
    • 2015,Kimberly D. Nettles-Barcelón, “The Sassy Black Cook and the Return of the Magic Negress: Popular Representations of Black Women's Food Work”, in Jennifer Jensen Wallach, editor,Dethroning the Deceitful Pork Chop: Rethinking African American Foodways from Slavery to Obama,Fayetteville, Ark.:University of Arkansas Press,→ISBN,page117:
      The montage goes on to show scenes of Carla singing, dancing, meditating, breaking the tension amongst her co-cheftestants with sing-a-longs and “hootie-hoo” lessons, and ultimately wooing the judges with a combination of herzanypersonality and solid cooking skills.
  2. Ludicrouslyorincongruouslycomical.

Synonyms

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Derived terms

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Translations

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See also

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Noun

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zany(pluralzanies)

  1. (obsolete)Afoolorclown,especially one whose business on the stage is to imitate foolishly the actions of the principal clown.
    • a.1631,John Donne,Epistle to Mr. I. W.:
      Then write that I may follow, and so be / Thy echo, thy debtor, thy foil, thyzany.
    • 1728,Alexander Pope,“Book III”, inThe Dunciad:
      O great restorer of the good old stage, / Preacher at once, andZanyof thy age!
    • [1898],J[ohn] Meade Falkner,Moonfleet,London; Toronto, Ont.:Jonathan Cape,published1934,→OCLC:
      So there he caught me lying like azanyon the ground. You may guess I stood at attention soon enough, but told him I was looking at the founds to see if they wanted underpinning from the floods.
    • 1996,Fiona Haslam,From Hogarth to Rowlandson: Medicine in Art in Eighteenth-century Britain,Liverpool:Liverpool University Press,→ISBN,page69:
      Part of the illusory world is the 'quack' or mountebank who can be seen standing on his own special platform in the centre of the crowd[].Such a person travelled round to fairs and markets selling his nostrums or medicines. This character is dressed in a lace hat, long periwig and embroidered coat with lace cuffs, and is attended by hiszany,who is wearing a chequered harlequin outfit and is 'quacking' or 'puffing' his master's wares. No seventeenth- or eighteenth-century mountebank was complete without hiszanyor 'Merry Andrew' – a term originally applied to Dr Andrew Boorde, physician to Henry VIII and noted for his ready wit and humour, who was the subject of many broadside ballads.

Verb

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zany(third-person singular simple presentzanies,present participlezanying,simple past and past participlezanied)

  1. (obsolete)Tomimicfoolishly.

References

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Anagrams

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