ridicule

1. 1

   To criticize or disapprove of someone or something through scornful jocularity; to make fun of.transitive

   • His older sibling constantly ridiculed him with sarcastic remarks.

1. 1

   Derision; mocking or humiliating words or behavior.countableuncountable

   • Safe from the Bar, the Pulpit, and the Throne, / Yet touch'd and sham'd by Ridicule alone.
2. 2

   An object of sport or laughter; a laughing stock.countableuncountable

   • [Marlborough] was so miserably ignorant, that his deficiencies made him the ridicule of his contemporaries.
   • To the people […] but a trifle, to the king but a ridicule.
3. 3

   The quality of being ridiculous; ridiculousness.countableuncountable

   • to see the ridicule of this monstrous practice

syn. ridicule · derision · scoff · mockery · katagelasticism

1. 1

   ridiculousobsolete

   • late 17th century, John Aubrey, Brief Lives This action […] became so ridicule.

1. 1

   A small woman's handbag; a reticule.historicalregional

   • I hastily drew my empty hand from my Ridicule.
   • “Tills be blowed!” said Mr. Claypole; “there’s more things besides tills to be emptied.” “What do you mean?” asked his companion. “Pockets, women’s ridicules, houses, mailcoaches, banks,” said Mr. Claypole, rising with the porter.

syn. ridicule · derision · scoff · mockery · katagelasticism