Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Slapstick |
SlapstickAdjective1. Characterized by horseplay and physical action; "slapstick style of humor". Noun1. A boisterous comedy with chases and collisions and practical jokes. 2. Acoustic device consisting of two paddles hinged together; used by an actor to make a loud noise without inflicting injury when striking someone. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Crosswords: Slapstick |
| English words defined with "slapstick": Arthur Stanley Jefferson Laurel ♦ black ♦ custard pie ♦ grim ♦ hardy ♦ laurel, Laurel and Hardy, low comedy ♦ Mack Sennett, mordant ♦ Oliver Hardy ♦ Sennett, Stan Laurel. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "slapstick": hacker humor, hacker humour. (references) |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
The style is derived from the Commedia dell'arte which employed a great deal of physical abuse and tumbling. The phrase comes from a device they used composed of two wooden slats which looked like a bat and which, when struck, produced a loud popping noise with very little force. This battacio, or slapstick as it was called in English, allowed the actors to strike each other repeatedly while causing very little actual damage. It was a very early form of special effect.
In recent times, violence in comedy has been decried by many, but many modern films like Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Scream combine violence and comedy, not to mention Itchy and Scratchy and it is unlikely that this traditional source of laughs will ever disappear.
Modern comedy films often use elements of slapstick, such as Dumb and Dumber
See also: laughter
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Slapstick."
| Domain | Usage | |
Movie/TV Titles | Slapstick and Old Lace (1971) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title |
Books | |
Theater & Movies | |
Music |
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| "Slapstick" is generally used as an adjective (general or positive) -- approximately 51.61% of the time. "Slapstick" is used about 31 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 |
| Adjective (general or positive) | 51.61% | 16 | 87,710 |
| Noun (singular) | 48.39% | 15 | 90,616 |
| Total | 100.00% | 31 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expressions using "slapstick": boisterous knockabout slapstick ♦ slapstick comedy. Additional references. | |
| 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. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
slapstick | 50 |
slapstick comedy | 12 |
messy slapstick | 11 |
pie slapstick | 6 |
face in pie slapstick | 5 |
lyrics slapstick | 3 |
slapstick encyclopedia | 3 |
slapstick humor | 3 |
gunge mess mud pie slapstick slime | 3 |
slapstick movie | 2 |
ska slapstick | 2 |
comedy history slapstick | 2 |
slapstick of another kind | 2 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "slapstick"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Albanian | trashanik (gross, ribald), i trashë (bearish, clumsy, coarse, coarse grained, crass, deep, dense, dullish, dumb, dummy, fat, fatuous, fool, full-bodied, full-fed, gross, gruff, lardy, oafish, obese, obtuse, puddingy, purblind, ropy, rough and ready, round, roundabout, slow witted, slowcoach, stupid, tactless, thick, uncouth, viscous, wooden, wooden-headed). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Arabic | كوميديا تهريجية, مزحة مضحكة. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Bulgarian | клоунада, пръчка на шут. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Czech | fraška (farce, slap comedy). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Farsi | نمایش خنده دارهمراه باشوخی . (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
French | farce bouffonne, comédie bouffonne. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
German | Situationskomik, Pritsche (fool's wand, pallet, plank bed, platform). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Greek | χοντροειδέσ αστείο. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Hebrew | קומ"י" מטורפת. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Hungarian | helyzetvígjáték (slap stick, slapstick comedy), bohózat sok ütleggel (slapstick comedy). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Italian | farsa grossolana. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Japanese Kanji | どさ回り'やる (blunder or clumsiness, constantly, flump, heavily, noise, noisy, one after the other, plump, rapidly, sound of tramping, sumo exclamation, to be on the road, to go on tour, whatever, whichever, with a flop, with a thud, without hesitation), スラプスティック喜劇 (slam, slum). (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Japanese Katakana | どたばた (noise, noisy), スラプスティックき'き. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Pig Latin | apstickslay sabre de arlequim, arlequinada (harlot). (various references) buf (bang, ludicrous, smash). (various references) хлопушка (flapper, fly swatter, slapsticks), фарс (farce). (various references) urnebesna komedija. (various references) payasadas (antics, clowning, horseplay, tomfoolery). (various references) filmfars. (various references) kaba komedi (clownery, slapstick comedy), hokkabazlık (conjuration, conjuring trick, hanky panky, illusionism, jugglery, legerdemain, parlor tricks, pass, prestidigitation, sleight), şakşak. (various references) хлопавка (cracker, flapper, fly-flap, petard), фарс (droll, farce). (various references) roi đét. (various references) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "slapstick": slapsticks. (additional references) | |
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"Slapstick" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: slapstics, slapstock. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "slapstick" (pronounced sla"psti'k) |
| 5 | -p s t i' k | chopstick, dipstick, lipstick. |
| 4 | -s t i' k | broomstick, candlestick, joystick, nightstick, yardstick. |
| 3 | -t i' k | impolitic, lunatic, politic, uptick. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-c-i-k-l-p-s-s-t" | |
-1 letter: plastics. | |
-2 letters: pastils, plastic, spastic, spitals. | |
-3 letters: aspics, clasps, claspt, clasts, pastil, pastis, placks, plaits, scalps, slacks, slicks, spails, spaits, spicas, spicks, spital, splats, splits, stacks, stalks, sticks, ticals, tilaks. | |
-4 letters: alist, apsis, aspic, aspis, calks, casks, casts, cists, claps, clapt, clasp, class, clast, clips, clipt, clits, ikats, kails, kilts, kists, lacks, laics, lapis. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-c-i-k-l-p-s-s-t" | |
+1 letter: slapsticks. | |
| 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. | |
Hexadecimal (or equivalents, 770AD-1900s) (references)53 6C 61 70 73 74 69 63 6B |
| Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519; backwards) (references)
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| American Sign Language (origins from 1620-1817 in Italy and, especially, France) (references)
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| Semaphore (1791, in France) (references)
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| Braille (1829, in France) (references)
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Morse Code (1836) (references)... .-.. .- .--. ... - .. -.-. -.- |
| Dancing Men (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1903) (references)
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Binary Code (1918-1938, probably earlier) (references)01010011 01101100 01100001 01110000 01110011 01110100 01101001 01100011 01101011 |
HTML Code (1990) (references)S l a p s t i c k |
ISO 10646 (1991-1993) (references)0053 006C 0061 0070 0073 0074 0069 0063 006B |
| British Sign Language (Fingerspelling, BSL; 1992, British Deaf Association Dictionary of British Sign Language) (references)
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Encryption (beginner's substitution cypher): (references)537867828586756977 |
| 1. Definition 2. Crosswords 3. Usage: Modern 4. Usage: Commercial | 5. Images: Slideshow 6. Usage Frequency 7. Expressions 8. Expressions: Internet | 9. Translations: Modern 10. Derivations 11. Rhymes 12. Anagrams | 13. Orthography 14. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
