Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Travesty |
TravestyNoun1. A comedy characterized by broad satire and improbable situations. 2. A composition that imitates somebody's style in a humorous way. Verb1. Make a parody of. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "travesty" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1615. (references) |
Synonyms: TravestySynonyms: burlesque (n), charade (n), farce (n), farce comedy (n), lampoon (n), mockery (n), parody (n), pasquinade (n), put-on (n), sendup (n), spoof (n), takeoff (n). (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Copy | Parody, caricature, burlesque, travesty, travestie, paraphrase. |
Imitation | Mock, take off, mimic, ape, simulate, impersonate, personate; act; (drama); represent; counterfeit, parody, travesty, caricature, lampoon, burlesque. |
Misinterpretation | Misrepresentation, perversion, exaggeration; false coloring, false construction; abuse of terms; parody, travesty; falsification; (lying). |
Misrepresent, pervert; explain wrongly, misstate; garble; (falsify); distort, detort; travesty, play upon words; stretch the sense, strain the sense, stretch the meaning, strain the meaning, wrest the sense, wrest the meaning; explain away; put a bad construction on, put a false construction on; give a false coloring. | |
Misrepresentation | Verb: misrepresent, distort, overdraw, exaggerate, caricature, daub; burlesque, parody, travesty. |
Noun: misrepresentation, distortion, caricatura, exaggeration; daubing; Verb: bad likeness, daub, sign painting; scratch, caricature; anamorphosis; burlesque, falsification, misstatement; parody, lampoon, take-off, travesty. | |
Ridicule | Satirize, parody, caricature, burlesque, travesty. |
Parody, burlesque, travesty, travestie; farce; (drama); caricature. | |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Travesty |
| English words defined with "travesty": Travestied, Travesties, Travesting. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "travesty": Jealousy ♦ Pyramus. (references) |
| Domain | Usage | |
Screenplays | I would choose oblivion over this travesty. (Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver; writing credit: Amy Hennig) This trial is a travesty. It's a travesty of a mockery of a sham of a mockery of a travesty of two mockeries of a sham (Bananas; writing credit: Woody Allen; Mickey Rose) | |
Movie/TV Titles | 2001: A Space Travesty (2000) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title | ||
Books |
| ||
Theater & Movies | |||
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit |  | Houdini, nothing on earth can hold Houdini! Fred Ray & Co. in an intensely funny "Roman travesty" .... Credit: Library of Congress. |
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
| Speaker | Phrase(s) |
Rush Limbaugh | There's a travesty being perpetrated with this so-called campaign finance reform bill, one you'd normally rely on the media to sound warning bells about. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| "Travesty" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 97.87% of the time. "Travesty" is used about 94 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) | 97.87% | 92 | 34,282 |
| Lexical Verb (infinitive) | 2.13% | 2 | 245,945 |
| Total | 100.00% | 94 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; 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 |
travesty | 71 |
2001 space travesty | 34 |
space travesty | 7 |
show travesty | 4 |
2001 cast space travesty | 3 |
fotos travesty | 3 |
cast space travesty | 2 |
stoppard tom travesty | 2 |
texas travesty | 2 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "travesty"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Albanian | shtrembëroj (bevel, contort, deface, deform, deprave, distort, falsify, mutilate, skew, slant, sophisticate, warp), shpërfytyroj (transfigure), parodi (burlesque, parody, skit), imitim qesharak. (various references) | |
Arabic | محاكاة ساخرة (mockery, spoof), قلد بسخرية, تنكر (abjure, deny, deny oneself, disavow, disclaim, disguise, disguise oneself, disown, guy, mask, masquerade, mockery, renounce, repudiate), تقليد ساخر, صورة زائفة. (various references) | |
Bulgarian | окарикатуряване (caricature, stultification), окарикатурявам (caricature, guy, stultify), правя пародия от, пародия (burlesque, mimicry, mock, parody, put on, rib, send up, skit, take off), изопачаване (contortion, corruption, deformation, distortion, falsification, manipulation, misrepresentation, mutilation, twist), изопачавам (become distorted, bend, color, colour, contort, corrupt, deform, distort, falsify, mangle, mutilate, pervert, torture, turn about, twist). (various references) | |
Czech | travestie, parodie (burlesque, parody, skit, take off, takeoff). (various references) | |
Dutch | travestie. (various references) | |
Esperanto | travestio. (various references) | |
Farsi | تقلیدمسخره امیزکردن (Parody), تعبیرهجوامیز. (various references) | |
French | travestissement, travestir, simulacre, se travestir, pastiche, parodie. (various references) | |
German | Travestie. (various references) | |
Greek | παρωδία (burlesque, caricature, mockery, parody, send up, skit), διακωμώδηση (mimicry, mocking), διακωμωδώ (mimic, mock). (various references) | |
Hebrew | לעשות ללע' (pillory), פרו"י" (parody, skit, spoof), חקוי לע' (take off). (various references) | |
Hungarian | paródia (parody, send-up, skit). (various references) | |
Italian | parodiare (parody), parodia (burlesque, parody, send up, spoof). (various references) | |
Manx | jannoo cam-arrish, cam-arrish. (various references) | |
Pig Latin | avestytray.(various references) | |
Portuguese | paródia (burlesque, parody, skit, take-off). (various references) | |
Romanian | parodie (burlesque, caricature, mockery, parody, pastiche), parodia (burlesque, mimic, mock, parody). (various references) | |
Russian | карикатура (caricature, cartoon), пародировать пародия, пародировать (mock, parody), пародия (burlesque, mock, mockery, parody, pastiche, skit). (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | travestija, parodirati (parody, send up), parodija (mockery, parody, skit), karikirati (caricature). (various references) | |
Spanish | parodia (burlesque, mockery, parody, spoof, takeoff). (various references) | |
Swedish | travesti (send up), travestera, parodiera (burlesque, parody), parodi (mockery, parody, send up, skit, spoof, takeoff), karikatyr (caricature). (various references) | |
Turkish | komik taklidini yapmak, karikatür (caricature, cartoon, take off), hicvetmek (epigrammatize, lampoon, satirize), hiciv (diatribe, irony, lampoon, pamphlet, satire, squib), hezel, gülünç taklit, gülünç duruma düşürmek. (various references) | |
Ukrainian | травесті, шарж, перекручувати (bedevil, contort, deform, disguise, distort, garble, kink, misconstrue, mutilate, pervert, sophisticate, torture, warp, wrest, wring), пародіювати (caricature, parody), пародія (burlesque, parody, spoof). (various references) | |
Vietnamese | sự nhại chơi, sự biến l m trò đùa, sự bắt chước đùa. (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
| Language | Period | Translations |
| Latin | 500 BCE-Modern | trans-. (various references) |
| French | 1500-Modern | travesti. (various references) |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "travesty": travestying. (additional references) | |
| |
"Travesty" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: Rovesti, tavestry, traresty, Travanti, travest, travesti, travestry, travestyt, travety, travisty, Travyth. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "travesty" (pronounced tra"vustē) |
| 4 | -u s t ē | amnesty, dishonesty, dynasty, honesty, majesty, modesty. |
| 3 | -s t ē | angioplasty, Beastie, bloodthirsty, Christie, Christy, crusty, dusty, feisty, frosty, gusty, hasty, lusty, misty, musty, nasty, rusty, sixty, tasty, testy, thirsty, trusty, twisty. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "a-e-r-s-t-t-v-y" | |
-1 letter: yatters. | |
-2 letters: averts, estray, starve, stater, stayer, taster, taters, tetras, traves, treats, treaty, tryste, vaster, vestry, yarest, yatter. | |
-3 letters: artsy, aster, avers, avert, eyras, rates, ratty, raves, resay, satyr, saver, sayer, stare, start, state, stave, stray, tares, tarts, tarty, taste, tasty, tater, tates, tears, teary, teats, testa, testy, tetra, trave, trays, treat, trets. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-e-r-s-t-t-v-y" | |
+3 letters: travestying, versatility. | |
+4 letters: transitively. | |
+5 letters: assortatively, contrastively, investigatory, overstability, superactivity. | |
| 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. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Modern | 5. Usage: Commercial 6. Images: Photo Album 7. Quotations: Spoken 8. Usage Frequency | 9. Expressions: Internet 10. Translations: Modern 11. Translations: Ancient 12. Derivations | 13. Rhymes 14. Anagrams 15. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
