Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Harlequin |
HarlequinNoun1. A clown or buffoon (after the Harlequin character in the commedia dell'arte). Verb1. Variegate with spots or marks; "His face was harlequined with patches". Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "harlequin" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1677. (references) |
| Domain | Definition |
Dream Interpretation | To dream of a harlequin cheating you, you will find uphill work to identify certain claims that promise profit to you. If you dream of a harlequin, trouble will beset you. To be dressed as a harlequin, denotes passionate error and unwise attacks on strength and purse. Designing women will lure you to paths of sin. Source: Ten Thousand Dreams Interpreted .... |
Literature | Harlequin means a species of drama in two parts, the introduction and the harlequinade, acted in dumb show. The prototype is the Roman atellanæ but our Christmas pantomime or harlequinade is essentially a British entertainment, first introduced by Mr. Weaver, a dancing-master of Shrewsbury, in 1702. (See below.) "What Momus was of old to Jove, The same a harlequin is now. The former was buffoon above, The latter is a Punch below." Swift: The Puppet Show. The Roman mime did not at all correspond with our harlequinade. The Roman mimus is described as having a shorn head, a sooty face, flat unshod feet, and a patched parti-coloured cloak. Harlequin, in the British pantomime, is a sprite supposed to be invisible to all eyes but those of his faithful Columbine. His office is to dance through the world and frustrate all the knavish tricks of the Clown, who is supposed to be in love with Columbine. In Armoric, Harlequin means "a juggler," and Harlequin metamorphoses everything he touches with his magic wand. The prince of Harlequins was John Rich (1681-1761). Harlequin. So Charles Quint was called by Francois I. of France. Source: Brewer's Dictionary. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
Arlecchino (also known as Harlequin, in French) is the most popular of the zanni or comic servant characters from the Italian Commedia dell'Arte.Arlecchino traditionally wore an outfit of patches and rags which evolved into the lozenge-shaped motley seen today. His mask was black with a large red blemish on his forehead similar to a boil.
The primary aspect of Arlecchino was his physical agility. While generally depicted as quite stupid and greedy (in a gastronomic sense) his acrobatics were what an audience expected to see. The character would never simply perform an action when the addition of a cartwheel or backflip would spice up the movement.
Within these restrictions the Ian Toyozumi was terribly elastic. Various troupes and actors would alter his behavior to suit style, personal preferences, or even the particular scenario being performed. One of most famous actors was Visentini (17th century).
He is typically cast as the servant of an innamorato or vecchio much to the detriment of his master's plans. Arlecchino often had a love interest in the person of Columbina which lust was only superseded by his desire for food or fear of his master.
The origins of the name are uncertain: some say it comes from Dante's Commedia (Inferno, XXI, 118) where one of devils is called Alichino. Others say it could come from Harlenkoenig, a Scandinavian hero. In another hypothesis it comes from Harlay, an English gentleman of the court of Henri III, who had protected an Italian actor.
In Goldoni and in Gozzi Arlecchino is sometimes called Truffaldino; other names: Traccagnino, Bagattino, Tabarrino, Tortellino, Naccherino, Gradelino, Mezzettino, Polpettino, Nespolino, Bertoldino, Fagiuolino, Trappolino, Zaccagnino, Trivellino, Passerino, Bagolino, Temellino, Fagottino, Pedrolino, Fritellino, Tabacchino.
Arlecchino is also the name of an opera by Ferruccio Busoni; see Arlecchino (opera).
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Arlecchino."
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Changeableness | Moon, Proteus, chameleon, quicksilver, shifting sands, harlequin, Cynthia of the minute, April showers; wheel of Fortune; transientness. |
Humorist | Buffoon, farceur, merry-andrew, mime, tumbler, acrobat, mountebank, charlatan, posturemaster, harlequin, punch, pulcinella, scaramouch, clown; wearer of the cap and bells, wearer of the motley; motley fool; pantaloon, gypsy; jack-pudding, jack in the green, jack a dandy; wiseacre, wise guy, smartass; fool. |
The Drama | Actor, thespian, player; method actor; stage player, strolling player; stager, performer; mime, mimer; artists; comedian, tragedian; tragedienne, Roscius; star, movie star, star of stage and screen, superstar, idol, sex symbol; supporting actor, supporting cast; ham, hamfatter; masker. pantomimist, clown harlequin, buffo, buffoon, farceur, grimacer, pantaloon, columbine; punchinello; pulcinello, pulcinella; extra, bit-player, walk-on role, cameo appearance; mute, figurante, general utility; super, supernumerary. |
Velocity | Mercury, Ariel, Camilla, Harlequin. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Harlequin |
| English words defined with "harlequin": Calicoback ♦ Magpie moth ♦ Rock duck. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "harlequin": Dances ♦ Lun ♦ Yale Haskell. (references) |
| Domain | Usage | |
Movie/TV Titles | Harlequin Exterminator (1991) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title | ||
Books | |||
Periodicals |
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Music |
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit | Thumbnail | Description & Credit |
 | Black and white wash drawing of Harlequin Ducks by John H. Dick. As a world traveler and photographer, Mr. Dick illustrated several books about American birds. (Deceased) Return to the Federal Duck Stamp Office Home Page. |  | Harlequin. Credit: Alaska Image Library. |
 | Harlequin Duck. Credit: Alaska Image Library. |  | The gentle desdemona, & harlequin friday. Credit: Library of Congress. |
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
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| "Harlequin bug" by Erika Thorpe Commentary: ".." |
Source: photographs selected by the editor, with permission from the photographers. |
| Play | Caption |
 | Clown; clowny; funny; horn; honk; honking; joker; antic; buffoon; comedian; comic; cut-up; dolt; droll; farceur; fool; funnyman; gagman; gagster; harlequin; humorist; jester; jokesmith; jokester; madcap; merry-Andrew; merrymaker; mime; mountebank; mummer. |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Title | Author | Quote |
Les Miserables | Hugo, Victor | The king has Roquelaure, the people has Harlequin. |
Walden | Thoreau, Henry David | Let Harlequin be taken with a fit of the colic and his trappings will have to serve that mood too. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| "Harlequin" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 71.43% of the time. "Harlequin" is used about 105 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (singular) | 71.43% | 75 | 38,535 |
| Noun (proper) | 28.57% | 30 | 63,341 |
| Total | 100.00% | 105 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expressions using "harlequin": Harlequin bat ♦ Harlequin beetle ♦ harlequin cabbage bug ♦ Harlequin caterpillar ♦ Harlequin duck ♦ Harlequin moth ♦ harlequin opal ♦ Harlequin snake ♦ rock harlequin. Additional references. | |
| Hyphenated Usage | |
Beginning with "harlequin": harlequin-snake, harlequin-trousered. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Language | Translations for "harlequin"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Albanian | palaço, laraman (motley, piebald, pied, Pinto, spotty), arlekin. (various references) | |
Arabic | مهرج (buffoon, clown, jester, joker), مضحك (buffoon, burlesque, clown, comedian, comic, comical, comics, droll, farcical, foolish, funny, humorous, jester, laughable, laughing, ludicrous, merry andrew, ridiculous, risible, silly, wag), نقش ملون, المهرج (buffoon, droll, pierrot, wag, zany), المضحك (buffoon, comedian, wag, zany). (various references) | |
Bulgarian | клоун (clown, funnyman, mountebank, punchinello, the vice, zany), арлекин, пъстър десен. (various references) | |
Czech | harlekýn. (various references) | |
Danish | stroemand. (various references) | |
Dutch | harlekijneend. (various references) | |
French | arlequin. (various references) | |
German | harlekin (buffoon, jester). (various references) | |
Greek | αρλεκινόπαπια. (various references) | |
Hebrew | מוקיון (buffoon, clown, stooge, zany), ליצן (buffoon, clown, droll, fool, jack-pudding, jester, scoffer, wag, zany). (various references) | |
Hungarian | tréfacsináló (joker, leg-puller, merry maker, prankster), paprikajancsi (clown, punch, punchinello, zany). (various references) | |
Indonesian | badut (buffoon, clown, jester). (various references) | |
Italian | moretta arlecchino, arlecchino. (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | 錦蛇 (harlequin snake, python). (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | にしきへび (harlequin snake, python). (various references) | |
Manx | thunnag vreck (harlequin duck, sheldrake). (various references) | |
Pig Latin | arlequinhay.(various references) | |
Portuguese | pato-arlequim, palhao, arlequim (buffoon, jester, pantaloon). (various references) | |
Romanian | pestriţ (dapple, gay, many-colored, many-coloured, medley, motley, mottled, particolored, particoloured, pied, speckled, spotted, variegated), paiaţã (weathercock, zany), clovn (buffoon, clown, fool, mime, pantaloon), bufon (antic, buffoon, butt, cut up, fool, jester, merry andrew, mugger, pantaloon, zany), bãlţat (pied, skewbald, spotted, streaked, streaky, striped, variegated), arlechin. (various references) | |
Russian | арлекин (buffoon, jester). (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | harlekin. (various references) | |
Spanish | Arlequín. (various references) | |
Swedish | harlekin, narr (fool, jester). (various references) | |
Turkish | soytarı (buffoon, clown, fool, jester, Judy, merry andrew, zany), rengârenk (colorful, colourful, lithochromatic, motley, multicolored, multicoloured, parti-colored, parti-coloured, party-colored, party-coloured, splashy, varicolored, varicoloured, variegated), palyaço (buffoon, clown, pierrot, zany), alacalı (dappled, mottled, multicolored, multicoloured, piebald), çok renkli (multicolored, multicoloured, polychromatic, polychrome). (various references) | |
Ukrainian | строкатий (brindled, gay, jazz, jazzy, pied, plural, varied), арлекін, бурлескний, блазень (antic, aper, banana, buffoon, clown, jester, motley, mountebank, owl-glass, tomfool, zany). (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
| Language | Period | Translations |
| Latin | 500 BCE-Modern | Histrionicus histrionicus. (various references) |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "harlequin": harlequinade, harlequinades, harlequins. (additional references) | |
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"Harlequin" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: Arlequino, hallesque, harlequinn, harliquin, harlquin, Salaquin. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "harlequin" (pronounced hÄ"rlukwun) |
| 3 | -w u n | anyone, genuine, penguin. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-e-h-i-l-n-q-r-u" | |
-1 letter: inhauler. | |
-2 letters: haulier, hernial, inhaler, quinela. | |
-3 letters: aliner, hailer, haleru, hauler, hernia, inhale, inhaul, larine, linear, lunier, nailer, neural, renail, requin, rhinal, unhair, unreal, urinal. | |
-4 letters: alien, aline, anile, ariel, aurei, elain, equal, haler, hilar, inure, learn, lehua, liane, liner, lunar, quail, quale, quare, quean, quern, quire, renal, uhlan, ulnae, ulnar, uraei, ureal, urial. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-e-h-i-l-n-q-r-u" | |
+1 letter: harlequins. | |
+3 letters: harlequinade. | |
+4 letters: harlequinades. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Crosswords 3. Usage: Modern 4. Usage: Commercial | 5. Images: Slideshow 6. Images: Photo Album 7. Images: Digital Art 8. Sounds | 9. Quotations: Fiction 10. Usage Frequency 11. Expressions 12. Expressions: Internet | 13. Translations: Modern 14. Translations: Ancient 15. Derivations 16. Rhymes | 17. Anagrams 18. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
