What's the difference between clown and silly?

Clown


Definition:

  • (n.) A man of coarse nature and manners; an awkward fellow; an ill-bred person; a boor.
  • (n.) One who works upon the soil; a rustic; a churl.
  • (n.) The fool or buffoon in a play, circus, etc.
  • (v. i.) To act as a clown; -- with it.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) He lost no time climbing on the back of the clown car of the demagogue who, with ghoulishly oedipal glee, he calls “Daddy”.
  • (2) If Kyrgios cares about his career – and sometimes he is so blase about his success, wealth and celebrity he professes to hate tennis – the hip young dude from Canberra who smirks when he should be smiling, who plainly is struggling with fame, needs to understand he is not the only clown in town.
  • (3) Another McChrystal aide reportedly called the White House national security adviser, Jim Jones, a clown who was "stuck in 1985".
  • (4) Doctor Brown In 2011, the American Phil Burgers (AKA bearded silent comic Doctor Brown) performed the funniest comedy show on the fringe : a sexy, stoner clown show that delighted, intrigued and molested its audience.
  • (5) He was also a profoundly unostentatious and reserved man, and although he undertook a great variety of roles, all were informed at heart with the wisdom of the sad clown.
  • (6) St Basil's was like a clown's nose on the face of the evil empire.
  • (7) "We've come to know each other ..." At school, Stanhope says he was too dark to be considered the class clown and, after a spell as a "fraud telemarketer" ("borderline legal stuff, trying to scam people basically"), he decided to give stand-up comedy a go at an open-mic in Las Vegas.
  • (8) The funniest sketch I’ve ever seen Roger Mann and Kevin Eldon’s “Australian clowns” dialogue in Simon Munnery’s live show Cluub Zarathustra, from 25 years ago, in which the duo described the clowning process in painful detail in stoned Australian beach-bum voices.
  • (9) As well as political statements and corny clown jokes, Madonna lamented the fact she was “very single” and had not had sex for some time.
  • (10) When the famous Rivels clowns recently came to a leading Berlin music-hall with their act, which used to include a parody of Charlie Chaplin, the clown who played the mock Charlie abandoned his little moustache and bowler and appeared in another disguise.
  • (11) Handshakes and hugs all round, from that clown Blatter and the German chancellor Angela Merkel.
  • (12) The legal challenges have been issued by a group of residents called the Preston New Road Action Group and Gayzer Frackman, a professional clown from Lytham St Annes who changed his name by deed poll from Geza Tarjanyi.
  • (13) The cupula of the supraorbital neuromast in the lateral line canal of the clown knifefish contains vertical columns.
  • (14) Afterwards, the group is photographed together, and Branson plays the clown, throwing his hands up in the air and whipping out that megawatt smile.
  • (15) This is a story about how trolls took the wheel of the clown car of modern politics.
  • (16) The latter is an intriguing vision , a trojan horse of massive deregulation of some of everything – a clown balloon horse, with rainbow polka dots and a jackass smile.
  • (17) Again, he was taken as a clown and neither arrested nor disciplined.
  • (18) "Dressing for pleasure" and "fun fashion" get a bad rap, especially for women in their middle age, as it is generally assumed that this is a euphemism for women dressing like clowns and not realising that, at their age (huff, huff), they should be wearing beige cashmere.
  • (19) Even as he handed out wads of petrodollars to impoverished developing countries, their leaders mocked him behind his back for being a buffoon and a clown.
  • (20) Further collections of sketches followed – Send Up the Clowns (2011) and House of Fun (2012).

Silly


Definition:

  • (n.) Happy; fortunate; blessed.
  • (n.) Harmless; innocent; inoffensive.
  • (n.) Weak; helpless; frail.
  • (n.) Rustic; plain; simple; humble.
  • (n.) Weak in intellect; destitute of ordinary strength of mind; foolish; witless; simple; as, a silly woman.
  • (n.) Proceeding from want of understanding or common judgment; characterized by weakness or folly; unwise; absurd; stupid; as, silly conduct; a silly question.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) We just hope that … maybe she’s gone to see her friend, talk some sense into her,” Renu said, adding that Shamima “knew that it was a silly thing to do” and that she did not know why her friend had done it.
  • (2) And Myers is cautioned after a silly block 3.21am GMT 54 mins Besler with a long-throw for SKC but it's cleared.
  • (3) As if to prove her silly dilettantism, when a journalist asked Dasha about her favourite artists, she replied, "I'm, like, really bad at remembering names."
  • (4) Some of them, pulled together for the manifesto, are silly, or doomed, or simply there for shock value - information points in the form of holograms of Dixon of Dock Green, the legalisation of soft drugs, official brothels opposite Westminster, complete with division bells.
  • (5) I am of a similar vintage and, like many friends and fans of the series, bemoan the fact that we are generally treated by society as silly, weak, daft, soppy, prejudiced (even bigoted), risk-averse and wary of new situations.
  • (6) I had more fun with Matt Winning , delivering a silly set on the Free Fringe imagining himself the son of Robert Mugabe.
  • (7) Facebook Twitter Pinterest In an essay for the Hollywood Reporter, Camille Paglia writes that Swift promotes a ‘silly, regressive public image’.
  • (8) His selection on Twitter, he added, was “all in no particular order, off the top of my head, and the most incomplete of lists”, put together in response to Talese’s “silliness”.
  • (9) As soon as they saw how serious it was, they switched from being my silly, fun friends into being the most reliable and amazing people.
  • (10) They were all young, and it was a party house, devoted to games of hide and seek, music, silly practical jokes and food fights in the drawing room.
  • (11) As a result, one or two wrote some rather silly things in their reports,” Wilshaw said.
  • (12) ‘Silly things said by a silly man’ To be honest I really don’t care what BoJo says.
  • (13) People usually don't make silly, careless mistakes when they're motivated and working in a positive environment.
  • (14) Watching “our lads” pretending to mouth questionable lyrics about God giving the Queen near-immortal life, and her being the victor when she’s not really of fighting age, is silly.
  • (15) Imagine my relief this week then, when I found out that I can now let go of all my silly gay politics.
  • (16) We have referees who are unfamiliar with that silly "Goaltender Interference" technicality.
  • (17) The syndrome he described--a psychosis of early onset with a deteriorating course characterized by a "silly" affect, behavioral peculiarities, and formal thought disorder--not only adumbrated Kraepelin's generic category of dementia praecox but quite specifically defined the later subtype of hebephrenic, or disorganized, schizophrenia as well.
  • (18) "But they're so silly that I must say I never found them intimidating."
  • (19) Just as certain songs become inextricably associated in our minds with certain eras (before the invention of iPods, that is, after which everyone could walk around every day with all the songs in the world on shuffle), so too do silly trends.
  • (20) In 2014, she began working as a writer at Late Night with Seth Meyers; her first standup spot on that show began with a joke that typified both her silliness and confidence.