From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The term Buffoon is a term for someone who provides amusement by his inappropriate appearance or behavior or both.

The etymology of the term may originate from the old Italian "buffare", meaning to puff out one's cheeks. Robin Williams conjectures in the movie Toys that the word "is a combination of the words 'buffer' and 'fool.' Or perhaps 'buffamotus,' he who carries the pickle."

Strictly, a buffoon is, "A ridiculous, but nevertheless amusing person." In the broad terms, a buffoon is a clownish, publicly amusing person, such as a court jester. In the more modern sense, the term is frequently used in a derogatory sense to describe someone considered a public fool, or someone whose inappropriately vulgar, bumbling or ridiculous behavior is a source of general amusement.

Comedic characters such as Homer Simpson and the "musicians" of the "mockumentary" Spinal Tap are good examples of modern buffoons. Comedians as varied as Stan Laurel, Don Knotts, Buddy Hackett, The Three Stooges, Steve Martin, Charlie Chaplin, Jim Carrey and Stephen Colbert have been described as buffoons. Shakespeare's Falstaff is sometimes considered the prototypical buffoon of classic literature; someone whose behavior is both discraceful and who remains a somewhat sympathetic or even tragic figure.

In the United States the term is used most commonly to describe inappropriate, clownish figures on the public stage; here the behavior of a variety of public figures have caused them to be described as buffoons by their political opponents.

A "tired and emotional" Earl of Rochester was involved in an amusing incident in a poem presented to the king, when he said:

• Jester
• Village idiot
• Karl Pilkington

Look up buffoon in
Wiktionary, the free dictionary.