ridicule
/ˈɹɪdɪkjuːl/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.34 in modern English
11
Scrabble Score
8
Letters
3
Syllables
7
Unique Chars
Meaning
verb
To criticize or disapprove of someone or something through scornful jocularity; to make fun of.
Transitive verb
Example Sentences
- "His older sibling constantly ridiculed him with sarcastic remarks."
- "Safe from the Bar, the Pulpit, and the Throne, / Yet touch'd and sham'd by Ridicule alone."
- "When he was young you'd not find him doing well in school, His mind would turn unto the waters. Always the focus of adolescent ridicule, He has no time for farmer's daughters. Alienated from the clique society, A lonely boy finds peace in fishing."
- "[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."
- "to see the ridicule of this monstrous practice"
Etymology
The obsolete adjective is borrowed from French ridicule, from Latin rīdiculus (“laughable, comical, amusing, absurd, ridiculous”), from ridere (“to laugh”). The noun is either from French, noun use of adjective, or from Latin rīdiculum, noun use of neuter of rīdiculus. The verb is from the noun or else from French ridiculer, from ridicule.
Origin
- Source language: French
Word Breakdown
Usage
Inflected Forms
ridicules (present, singular)
ridiculing (participle, present)
ridiculed (participle, past)
ridiculed (past)
ridicules (plural)
more ridicule (comparative)
most ridicule (superlative)