What's the difference between clownish and comical?

Clownish


Definition:

  • (a.) Of or resembling a clown, or characteristic of a clown; ungainly; awkward.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Karadzic and Vojislav Seselj , an extreme Serbian nationalist and former paramilitary leader, are currently performing to the same clownish script.
  • (2) It really astonished me.” Donald Trump: I get along great with Mexico but China should watch out Read more On a superficial level, says Bisley, Beijing would be ecstatic at the emergence of a “buffoonish, clownish, evil boss” who captures the “chaos of democracy” so well.
  • (3) Cigarettes, soap, shoe polish, Uncle Ben's rice and "Cream of Wheat" cereal used clownish black characters and "black" grammar in their advertising.
  • (4) These might include, say, red leather trousers, bow ties, Lycra, bomber jackets, leopard-print, cartoon sailor collars, white tights, military frogging, deckchair stripes, blazers, bikinis, giant checks and more of the massive, clownishly shouldered jackets that Diana would accessorise – often to 1980s acclaim – with panto tricorns, pillboxes the size of cake tins.
  • (5) He doesn’t publicly criticise Griff for giving paranoid lectures about the Illuminati, just like he didn’t knock Flav for becoming a clownish reality TV star.
  • (6) Bush disseminated a new web video on Saturday entitled Judgement [sic], which uses a whimsical clarinet soundtrack and interview lowlights to portray Trump as a clownish figure not suited to the grave responsibilities of the presidency.
  • (7) Stuart Campbell Hightae, Dumfriesshire • Neal Ascherson ( Letters , 25 February) says that José Manuel Barroso's "clownish blurt seems to have no support from embarrassed European commission colleagues".
  • (8) While many have portrayed him as a clownish and eccentric figure – an image no doubt reinforced by his characterisation in Team America: World Police – others say he is smart and even witty.
  • (9) He was the reserve keeper, the relic of the past, the clownish figure so often blamed for Ivorian failure.
  • (10) An optimistic interpretation is that Kim, giving the lie to his clownish, bon-viveur image, is actually being rather Machiavellian by setting the stage for a new opening to the west.
  • (11) If you have a job, most likely you'll have been at work; if you don't, just admitting to have seen Lord Freud and his serpentine, clownish position-taking would probably be grounds enough to get you sanctioned.
  • (12) For all that, Luhrmann's clownish progress has carried him far.
  • (13) Vladimir Zhirinovsky, a clownish racist whose Liberal Democratic Party's policies are as far from liberalism or democracy as they can get, proposed "cleaning" the Russian language of supposedly unnecessary borrowings last year – mentioning words such as singl , butik and performans – though it didn't get much traction then.
  • (14) Behind the clownish posturing lies one ugly fact: since 1992, when these negotiations were conceived, global greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels have risen by half.
  • (15) His appeal is clownish: fine for a fun job like City Hall, but a liability for anyone aspiring to lead the country, in charge of the military and the NHS.
  • (16) As for Jose Manuel Barroso's claim that Scotland might be barred from EU membership, which Martin Kettle calls "an important warning", this clownish blurt seems to have no support from embarrassed European commission colleagues.
  • (17) One piece I watch in the packed theatre is based on a classic piece of north Indian folk theatre, poking fun at a clownish British redcoat who attempts to have his wicked way with a local girl.

Comical


Definition:

  • (a.) Relating to comedy.
  • (a.) Exciting mirth; droll; laughable; as, a comical story.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Because such a possibility seems so remote as to be comic.
  • (2) NGOs and foundations • Comic Relief Announced new funding of £1m at the conference.
  • (3) After heading for Rome with his long-term partner, Howard Auster, he returned to fiction with a bestselling novel, Julian, based on the life of a late Roman emperor; a political novel, Washington DC, based on his own family; and Myra Breckinridge, a subversive satire that examined contradictions of gender and sexuality with enough comic brio to become a worldwide bestseller.
  • (4) The trip raised millions for Comic Relief but prompted some uncharitable headlines after it emerged in July that Parfitt had billed the taxpayer £541.83 for "specialist clothing" – and a further £26.20 for the cost of picking it up in a cab.
  • (5) In October, Amazon announces a digital partnership with DC Comics, prompting Barnes & Noble to remove its comic books from its shelves.
  • (6) "The only thing missing for true greatness however has been that comical touch that comes each time England figure out a new way to completely discombobulate themselves as they crash out.
  • (7) Comic writing can be a brutal, unforgiving business, yet it can produce great and multi-layered prose, combining comedy, pathos and satire.
  • (8) Through small and large acts of deprivation and destruction we follow the process: the removal of hope, of dignity, of luxury, of necessity, of self; the reduction of a man to a hoarder of grey slabs of bread and the scrapings of a soup bowl (wonderfully told all this, with a novelist's gift for detail and sometimes very nearly comic surprise), to the confinement of a narrow bed – in which there is "not even any room to be afraid" – with a stranger who doesn't speak your language, to the cruel illogicality of hating a fellow victim of oppression more than you hate the oppressor himself – one torment following another, and even the bleak comfort of thinking you might have touched rock bottom denied you as, when the most immediate cause of a particular stress comes to an end, "you are grievously amazed to see that another one lies behind; and in reality a whole series of others".
  • (9) In 2000 the comic strip Mother Goose and Grimm showed an owl in a tree calling "Whom" and a raccoon on the ground replying "Show-off!"
  • (10) That's in 1888; by 1890 the tone is of comic resignation (there is much comedy in these pages) as Edmond realises that he has devoted the whole of his life "to a special sort of literature: the sort that brings one trouble".
  • (11) He will continue to work part time for BBC radio on leadership development and take on an advisory role with Comic Relief.
  • (12) iPhone Shifter: Interactive Graphic Novel (Free) What was that about interesting things in the world of digital comics?
  • (13) Ian Livingstone is not all that keen on being photographed near the life-sized model of Lara Croft in his study – even though he was largely responsible for launching her on the world nearly 20 years ago, and the heroine of the Tomb Raider video games, comics and films helped to make his fortune.
  • (14) Trump’s tragic Nam story is captured in the film Apocalypse Ow.” On Late Night with Seth Meyers, the comic examined the timing of Trump’s Nordstrom tweet, noting that it came just 21 minutes after he was supposed to be in his daily intelligence briefing.
  • (15) "I'm not going to suddenly stop admiring his unique comic talent because I've switched teams," Allen told the Guardian.
  • (16) Between festivals, Hardee played cameo roles in TV comedies such as Blackadder and The Comic Strip, and ran his own comedy club, the Tunnel, which he had opened at the southern end of the Blackwall Tunnel in 1984; it acquired a fearsome reputation as a graveyard for aspiring standups.
  • (17) The ex-comic ruled out giving a crucial confidence vote in parliament to a centre-left government and reiterated that the M5S's new legion of deputies and senators would vote on laws on a case-by-case basis.
  • (18) There have always been geeks and fans here, it’s just now they call it Comic-Con.
  • (19) Zack Snyder's comic-book reimagining, which opens in the UK and US this Friday, is being tipped for an impressive box office haul.
  • (20) His comic adventures are too many to relate, but it may be said that they culminate in a café of 'singing waiters' where, after a wealth of comic 'business' with the tray, he shows his disdain for articulate speech by singing a vividly explicit song in gibberish.