Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Burlesque   /bərlˈɛsk/   Listen
Burlesque

noun
1.
A theatrical entertainment of broad and earthy humor; consists of comic skits and short turns (and sometimes striptease).
2.
A composition that imitates or misrepresents somebody's style, usually in a humorous way.  Synonyms: charade, lampoon, mockery, parody, pasquinade, put-on, sendup, spoof, takeoff, travesty.
verb
(past & past part. burlesqued; pres. part. burlesquing)
1.
Make a parody of.  Synonyms: parody, spoof.
adjective
1.
Relating to or characteristic of a burlesque.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Burlesque" Quotes from Famous Books



... surprising, have seldom anything in them that can be called wit. Mr. Locke's account of wit, with this short explanation, comprehends most of the species of wit, as metaphors, similitudes, allegories, enigmas, mottoes, parables, fables, dreams, visions, dramatic writings, burlesque, and all the methods of allusion: as there are many other pieces of wit, how remote soever they may appear at first sight from the foregoing description, which upon examination will be found ...
— Essays and Tales • Joseph Addison

... anything I know to the contrary; but I must confess it appears to me to be introduced as something loathsome or repulsive, and (on the poet's part) to cap the absurdity of the preceding feat. The use made by other writers of a passage is one of the most valuable kinds of comment. In a burlesque some years ago, I recollect a passage was brought to a climax with the very words, "Wilt eat a crocodile?" The immediate and natural response was—not "the thing's impossible!" but—"you nasty beast!" What a descent then from the drinking ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 68, February 15, 1851 • Various

... opinions, is surely a vague way of translating. It is also, in the present acceptation of the word, improper. Formerly the term wise men denoted philosophers, or men of science and erudition: it is hardly ever used so now, unless in burlesque. Some say Magi; but Magians is better, as having more the form of an English word." CAMPBELL'S Translation of the Four ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox

... as follows: "Flashy people may burlesque these things, but when hundreds of the most sober people in a country, where they have as much mother-wit certainly as the rest of mankind, know them to be true, nothing but the absurd and froward spirit of Sadduceeism can question them. I have not yet mentioned so much ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham

... Tales—of the Council of Nice, in the fourth century, Mr. Smith indulges his usual felicitous vein of humour, in a burlesque which he puts into the mouth of a slave of the Bishop of Ethiopia,—"a little, corpulent, bald-headed, merry-eyed man of fifty, whose name was Mark; whose duty it was to take charge of the oil, trim ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 544, April 28, 1832 • Various


More quotes...



Copyright © 2025 Dictionary One.com