backstory

From back- (prefix meaning ‘in, into, or towards the past’) + story.

prefix

What’s the backstory of our new colleague?

These backstories cast the characters' behavior in a new light: of course Gertrude would promptly marry the man who saved her from abuse; of course Ophelia would be desperate and indiscreet in seeking Hamlet's love.

2004 January 15, Kelly Kleiman, “Her side of the story [review of Ophelia by Bryony Lavery, performed by the Camenae Ensemble Theatre Company]”, in Chicago Reader, Chicago, Ill.: Chicago Reader, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2022-05-26:

Inexplicably, and at great risk to the integrity of the movie, the filmmakers have burdened him with a psychological back story pulled out of a folder in some studio filing cabinet. Why does [Willy] Wonka spend his days confecting sweets?

2005 July 15, A[nthony] O[liver] Scott, “Looking for the candy, finding a back story [review of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005)]”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2023-10-08:

Agent Lyla: Enough back story! / Dr. Doofenshmirtz: Actually, that's not, uh … that's not really a back story, it's just expositional flashback. It doesn't, uh, have any childhood trauma, it's doesn't really inform who he is, it's not … it's just flashback. There's a difference. It's subtle, but there's a difference.

2013 March 1, Kaz [i.e., Kazimieras Gediminas Prapuolenis], Kim Roberson, Aliki Theofilopoulos Grafft, John Mathot, “Sidetracked”, in Phineas and Ferb, season 4, episode 7, spoken by Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz (Dan Povenmire):

Prince Harry may yet turn out to be the crown’s best insurance policy. By marrying Meghan Markle, he is linking royalty with a 21st-century celebrity who has a backstory that many people in Britain can identify with.

2017 December 27, “Editorial: The Guardian view on Prince Harry: the monarchy’s best insurance policy”, in Katharine Viner, editor, The Guardian, London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2023-04-29:

The previous experiences and life of a person, specifically (narratology, especially in film, television) a character in a dramatic work.


twofer

Shortened form of two-for-one [deal], that is, two for the price of one (BOGO).

A cabling device used in theatre, allowing two stage lighting instruments to be connected to one dimmer.


flashback

→ German: Flashback

→ Spanish: flashback

→ Norwegian: flashback

→ Portuguese: flashback

(authorship) A dramatic device in which an earlier event is inserted into the normal chronological flow of a narrative.

salt enrere

a dramatic device in which an earlier event is inserted into the normal chronological flow of a narrative


sideshow

sideshow
sideshow (automobile exhibition)

1999 November 8, Frank Hayes, The Back Page: The main event, Computerworld, page 86,
And IT people dismiss IT′s impact because, hey, we like being a sideshow to the real action.

1999, Australian Bureau of Statistics, Year Book, Australia, Number 81, page 349,
Other recreation services, including amusement parks or arcades, sideshows, circuses and agricultural shows, accounted for another 666 businesses. These businesses employed 10,318 persons and a further 3,518 volunteers.

In Australia he busked (singing on street corners), steeplejacked, was a drover and sheep shearer, did motor bike stunts in sideshows and even painted the Sydney Harbor^([sic]) Bridge.

2002, Steve Evans, Ron Middlebrook, Cowboy Guitars, page 146:

They taught the twins to play saxophone and transferred them from the sideshow to vaudeville.

2005, Joe Nickell, Secrets of the Sideshows, page 126:

Entertainment features and sideshows enhanced attendance.

2006, Lynda Mannik, Canadian Indian Cowboys in Australia: Representation, Rodeo, and the RCMP at the Royal Easter Show, 1939, page 13:

Don′t miss the rusty relics dredged up from the original pier, and the spooky old sideshow machines.

2009, Charles Rawlings-Way, Meg Worby, Lindsay Brown, Paul Harding, Central Australia: Adelaide to Darwin, Lonely Planet, page 63:

1972 October 14, Henry Johnston, U.S. Tune Wins Rio Festival, Billboard, page 64,
Sideshows for foreign guests included one provided by Philips manager Andre Midani with his chief recording artists including Chico Buarque, Jorge Ben, Gal Costa Quintato, and Violado.

A minor attraction at a larger event such as a circus, fair, music festival or similar.


harlequin

From earlier Harlicken, from Middle French Harlequin (in Italian Arlecchino, the name of a popular servant character in commedia dell'arte plays), from Old French Harlequin, Halequin, Herlequin, Hellequin, Hierlekin, Hellekin (a demon, malevolent spirit), probably of Germanic origin, connected to the Old English figure of Herla Cyning (“King Herla”, a mythical figure identified with Woden) or possibly to Old Frisian helle kin, Old English helle cyn, Old Norse heljar kyn (“the kindred of Hell”). Related to Middle English Hurlewain (“a mischievous sprite or goblin”).

cog

Brightly colored, especially in a pattern like that of a harlequin clown's clothes.


legit

(theater, slang) A legitimate; a legitimate actor.


jocularity

en-noun

jocularity (countable and uncountable, plural jocularities)

/ˌd͡ʒɑkjəˈlɛɹɪti/

It should seem he had that day been in a humour for jocularity and merriment, and upon such occasions I never knew a man laugh more heartily.

1791, James Boswell, “(please specify the year)”, in The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. […], London: […] Henry Baldwin, for Charles Dilly, […], →OCLC, page 494:

[…] Cristal Nixon at that moment rode up to them, and said, with an affectation of jocularity which sat very ill upon his sullen features, […]

1824 June, [Walter Scott], “chapter 5”, in Redgauntlet, […], volume III, Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne and Co.] for Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co., →OCLC, page 156:

All were armed with pistols, and there was a small armoury of rifles against a wall. “Guns,” I said with fearful jocularity, “in a holy place?”

1980, Anthony Burgess, chapter 74, in Earthly Powers, London: Hutchinson:

Madouc was neither pleased nor impressed by Prince Bittern’s mannerisms, and remained pointedly unresponsive to his lame jocularities.


peripeteia

peripeteia (countable and uncountable, plural peripeteias)

/pɛɹɪpɪˈtɪə/

/pɛɹɪpɪˈtaɪə/

/pɛɹɪpɪˈtiə/

/pɛɹɪpɪˈteɪə/

From Late Latin peripetia, and its source Ancient Greek περιπέτεια (peripéteia), from περιπίπτω (peripíptō, “to change suddenly”), from περί (perí, “round, around, about”) + the stem of πίπτω (píptō, “to fall”).

(drama) A sudden reversal of fortune as a plot point in Classical tragedy.

перипетия

a reversal of fortune; a sudden change in circumstances


repertory

→ Japanese: レパートリー (repātorī)

→ Korean: 레퍼토리 (repeotori)

/ˈɹɛp.əɹˌtɔɹ.i/

/ˈɹɛpəɹˌtoʊɹ.i/

Learned borrowing from Late Latin repertōrium. Doublet of repertoire.

lbor

A collection of things, or a place where such a collection is kept.

Since "Masques" was my first exposure to Stage I, My admiration of that production spawned an intense enthusiasm for the seven-year-old company, which, unfortunately, was quickly dampened by seeing "Icarus," which runs in repertory with "Masques."

1976 April 17, Don Shewey, “Eros and Heroes on the Boards”, in Gay Community News, page 11:

A theater in which a resident company presents works from a specified repertoire, usually in alternation.


dress rehearsal

en-noun

dress rehearsal (plural dress rehearsals)

We've got three dress rehearsals before the opening night to prepare ourselves for any potential technicalities.

(theater) A rehearsal prior to a public spectacle, where all the performers are in costume, in order to test all aspects of the production by closely reproducing the actual conditions of a performance.


number one

(theater) A large town where theatrical performances may expect to achieve success.


Verfremdungseffekt

Borrowed from German Verfremdungseffekt.

Brecht's famous ‘Verfremdungseffekte’^([sic]) or ‘alienation effect’, intended to counter the magical associations of stage illusion and the tendency for spellbound audiences to identify emotionally with characters on stage, both of which Brecht found abhorrent.

1997 May, Clive Barker, Simon Trussler, editors, New Theatre Quarterly, volume 13, number 50, page 114:

(theater, literature) Brecht's distancing effect.


put-on

I think this is all a big put-on.

(informal) A deception, hoax, or practical joke.


lampshade

en-verb

lampshade (third-person singular simple present lampshades, present participle lampshading, simple past and past participle lampshaded)

lampshades (present singular third-person)
lampshading (participle present)
lampshaded (participle past)
lampshaded (past)

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-lampshade.wav

From lamp + shade. The verb sense comes from the idea of making something more conspicuous by hanging a lampshade on it.

Only one short bit of humor is endearing, lampshading the ridiculousness of an eye-mask being able to conceal a superhero's identity.

2011 June 21, Corinne Gaston, “Adapted comic book flick has the ring, but no power”, in Daily Trojan:

Rewriting a whole character is one heck of a chore but the editor/writer must either bite the bullet or indulge in some clever trickery like lampshading.

2013, Heide Goody, Iain Grant, How to Write a Collaborative Novel, →ISBN:

Just as the push by writers in season 4 to make Homer stupider (a trend so established it was lampshaded in "The 138th Episode Spectacular") created some of the best episodes before eventually birthing an unlikable buffoon unaffectionately called "Jerkass Homer", so too is it less the episode itself as much as what it represented.

2019 April 30, Alex Leadbeater, “Did "Marge Be Not Proud" Start The Simpsons' Decline In Season 7?”, in Screen Rant:

(narratology, fandom slang) To intentionally call attention to the improbable, incongruent, or clichéd nature of an element or situation featured in a work of fiction within the work itself.


in character

It was difficult to stay in character, because I kept wanting to laugh.

(idiomatic, drama, roleplaying games) Acting as the character, not as oneself.


off book

After 5 days studying the script, Jane is now off book, and can concentrate on gesture more.

"He will glibly parse a sentence ... and repeat the catechism and whole chapters of the Bible 'off book.'"

1873, Thomas Wright, Our New Masters, Strahan & Co., page 125:

"In all likelihood, the director will leave you alone throughout the rest of the production and focus attention on the guy who isn't off book yet."

1993, Doug Moston, Coming to Terms with Acting, →ISBN, page 74:

"'So if Antigone wants to be off book, I think the rest of you should be off book too.'"

2003, Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex, Picador,, →ISBN, page 332:

(theater) No longer needing the script to rehearse.


teaser

→ German: Teaser

(theater) A short horizontal curtain used to mask the flies and frame the top of the inner stage opening, adjustable to the desired height.


amusing

en-adj

amusing (comparative more amusing, superlative most amusing)

more amusing (comparative)
most amusing (superlative)

An amusing incident on the first of these journeys was the checking by signal of the flyer about 3 miles out of Paris, with the result that it was overhauled by the 6.25 p.m. semi-fast from Paris to Montargis, to the unconcealed delight of passengers in the latter.

1952 December, 'Mercury', “Modern French Locomotive Performance”, in Railway Magazine, pages 808-809:


carny

en-noun

carny (countable and uncountable, plural carnies)

The Reverend Foster, self-ordained—or directly ordained by God, depending on authority cited—had an instinct for the pulse of his times stronger than that of a skilled carnie sizing up a mark.

1961, Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land, New York: Avon, →OCLC, page 276:

Bart spies an opportunity to make a quick buck so he channels his inner carny and posits his sinking house as a natural wonder of the world and its inhabitants as freaks, barking to dazzled spectators, “Behold the horrors of the Slanty Shanty! See the twisted creatures that dwell within! Meet Cue-Ball, the man with no hair!”

2012 May 20, Nathan Rabin, “TV: Review: THE SIMPSONS (CLASSIC): “Marge Gets A Job” (season 4, episode 7; originally aired 11/05/1992)”, in The Onion AV Club:

(informal, countable) A person who works in a carnival (often one who uses exaggerated showmanship or fraud).

(uncountable) The jargon used by carnival workers.


storyline

From story + line. The climate science usage is defined in the IPCC WG III AR5 report (2014).

That film had a wonderful storyline, but the poor acting let it down.


one-night stand

one-night stand (plural one-night stands)

Again, when the affair is over, I catch a glimpse of myself running to catch a train for our next one-night stand.

1916 March 25, Irvin S. Cobb, “"Unaccustomed as I am—"”, in Saturday Evening Post:

It wasn't until the third or fourth or fifth drops that I became aware of this rain that was to engulf my life. I remember the date, August 3, 1928. We were playing a one-night stand in a small town in Louisiana, Glenberry.

1948, Barré Lyndon, Jonathan Latimer (screenplay), Night Has a Thousand Eyes (motion picture), spoken by John Triton (Edward G. Robinson):

An occasion when a performer or team of them (especially in vaudeville) expects to perform at a theater for a single evening.


catchword

(theater) The last word of a speech, serving as a cue for the next speaker.


hocus-pocus

/ˌhəʊkəs ˈpəʊkəs/

LL-Q1860 (eng)-I learned some phrases-hocus-pocus.wav

Archbishop of Canterbury
Jesus
John Tillotson
Robert Ibbitson

The interjection and noun are derived from made-up pseudo-Latin magical incantations used by conjurers (formerly called “jugglers”) such as “hocus pocus, tontus talontus, vade celeriter jubeo” (with a particular 17th-century conjurer adopting Hocus Pocus as his name) and “hax pax max Deus adimax”. The suggestion that the term is a corruption of words from the Roman Catholic liturgy of the Eucharist, “hoc est enim corpus meum” (“this is my [i.e., Jesus’s] body”), was made in a sermon by the Archbishop of Canterbury, John Tillotson (1630–1694), but is not generally accepted.
The verb is derived from the noun.

nb...

That is, the Lord doth Avenge the Blood of the Innocent upon the Inhabitants of the Earth: This Book is Profitable to bee Read by All Judges of Assizes, before They Passe the Sentence of Condemnation against Poor People, who are Accused for Witchcraft; it is also Profitable for All Sorts of People to Read who Desire Knowledge.

dwelling in Simithfield neer Hosier Lane End

Containing Fifty-four Sermons and Discourses, on Several Occasions. Together with the Rule of Faith. Being All that were Published by His Grace Himself, and Now Collected into One Volume. To which is Added, an Alphabetical Table of the Principal Matters.

A phrase used (by a stage magician, etc.) as a magical incantation to bring about some change: abracadabra, hey presto.


flogger

From flog + -er. Compare Low German flogger (“a flail”).

Schlepitchka is a texturing trick done by twirling a feather duster or flogger around gently and dabbing it on the surface of the scenery between each twirl of the tool so that the splayed pattern prints on the scenery.

2012, Susan Crabtree, Peter Beudert, Scenic Art for the Theatre: History, Tools and Techniques, page 303:

(theater) A handle with strips of cloth attached, used for beating away charcoal dust etc.


fabula

From Latin fabula (“story”). Doublet of fable.

(narratology) A series of events forming the basis of a story or narrative.


MST

Mountain Standard Time
Mountain Standard Time#English


femme fatale

en-noun

femme fatale (plural femmes fatales or femme fatales)

femmes fatales (plural)
femme fatales (plural)

Unadapted borrowing from French femme fatale (literally “deadly woman”).

ubor

Cause everybody knows (She's a femme fatale) / The things she does to please (She's a femme fatale)

1967, Lou Reed (lyrics and music), “Femme Fatale”, in The Velvet Underground & Nico, performed by The Velvet Underground:

An attractive and seductive but ultimately dangerous woman.


sit on one's hands

en-verb

sit on one's hands (third-person singular simple present sits on one's hands, present participle sitting on one's hands, simple past and past participle sat on one's hands)

sits on one's hands (present singular third-person)
sitting on one's hands (participle present)
sat on one's hands (participle past)
sat on one's hands (past)

While Boston is a "musical town," audiences here sat on their hands a good part of the time.

(theater, informal) To fail to applaud when expected to.


coryphée

Borrowed from French coryphée, from Latin coryphaeus, from Ancient Greek κορυφαῖος (koruphaîos, “leader of the chorus in an Ancient Greek drama”), from κορῠφή (koruphḗ, “top of the head, crown”) (possibly ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *ḱerh₂- (“head, top; horn”)) + -ῐος (-ios, suffix forming adjectives meaning ‘belonging to, pertaining to’).

der

The piece [...] contains a passage for men's voices marked "Les Travailleurs," topped by a tenor solo (in alto clef) marked "Coryphée," a term originally meaning leader of the chorus, as in a Greek tragedy. [...] [T]he aforementioned "Coryphée" line grows out of a recitative for first tenor.

1986, Ralph P. Locke, “The Rue Monsigny and Salle Taitbout: Music in the Formative Years”, in Music, Musicians and the Saint-Simonians, Chicago, Ill., London: University of Chicago Press, →ISBN, part 3 (Practice), page 86:

Two coryphées, or coryphæi, the term for the leader of a Greek chorus, were stationed in towers on either side of the stage. A device borrowed from Léon Chancerel's Mission de Jeanne d'Arc, the coryphées are present for the entire length of the drama. Like the messenger, they commented upon the action in a Manichean dialogue: one cheering on Joan of Arc, the other deriding her.

2013, Lucie Kayas, Christopher Brent Murray, “Olivier Messiaen and Portique pour une fille de France”, in Christopher Dingle, Robert Fallon, editors, Messiaen Perspectives, Farnham, Surrey, Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate, →ISBN; republished volumes 1 (Sources and Influences), Abingdon, Oxfordshire, New York, N.Y.: Routledge, 2016, →ISBN, page 52:

(Ancient Greece, drama, historical) The conductor or leader of the chorus of a drama.


gridiron

en-noun

gridiron (countable and uncountable, plural gridirons)

From resembling the shape of a gridiron (a square rectilinear grid).

(theater) A raised framework from which lighting is suspended.


light bulb joke

light bulb joke (plural light bulb jokes)

Any joke of the form "How many X does it take to change a light bulb?" followed by a witty riposte, where X is some usually stereotypical class of people.


heroics

/hɪˈɹəʊ.ɪks/

Of if we have an elderly person who is unconscious and not responding, we discuss using heroics with the family, and they often say no heroics.

1976, Ronald E. Alexander, Lawrence P. Wilkins, Medical-legal dilemmas in the care of the critically ill:

Her daughters argue that no heroics should be used to prolong her life.

1988, American College of Legal Medicine, Legal Medicine: Legal Dynamics of Medical Encounters, page 122:

No Heroics. Do not use respirators, ventilators or administer medication other than those medications necessary to prevent infection, provide comfort or alleviate pain.

1998, George Watson, Emily Watson, The Calling: A Journey on the Path of Parent Care, page 29:

(US, medicine) Emergency intervention to save a patient's life.


class clown

He was always the class clown, constantly telling jokes and attracting everyone's attention in school.

(idiomatic) A student who frequently makes jokes or pokes fun; a wiseacre.


diegetic

/ˌdaɪəˈd͡ʒɛtɪk/

Learned borrowing from Ancient Greek διηγητικός (diēgētikós).


reported speech

If we were to change "Fred says, 'I will do the housework'" into reported speech it would become "Fred said that he would do the housework."

(grammar, narratology) A form of speech used to express what another has said, often involving a change in tense.

ситләтелгән телмәр

a form of speech used to express what another has said


everyman

Perhaps from the Flemish play Elckerlijc (c. 1495) or its English translation Everyman (c. 1520)

In fiction, drama, or allegory, the archetypical ordinary individual, frequently the protagonist in a parable of some sort.


odeon

From Ancient Greek ᾠδεῖον (ōideîon), from ᾠδή (ōidḗ, “song”).

The other building type similar to theatres, although smaller and generally roofed, was the odeon. Unlike theatres and amphitheatres, odea were not built in all of the larger Roman towns, although they became more common in the second century ad.

1986, John H. Humphrey, Roman Circuses: Arenas for Chariot Racing, University of California Press, →ISBN, page 3:

However, the significance of this transformation should not be overstated: it was not converted in to a church until the 6th c., and political meetings are attested in the nearby odeon, from late acclamations. Sagalassos is in fact the only eastern bouleuterion to show decay in the 5th c. Other examples are known that are generically dated to Late Antiquity: from Aizanoi and Ptolemais, both with bouleuteria-odea converted to aquatic spectacles, from Selge, where the building was converted into a church, and from Seleuceia-Lyrbe, where the building seems to have been transformed into a row of shops.

2021, Luke Lavan, Public Space in the Late Antique City, Brill, →ISBN, page 310:

Based on its small size, the excavators have suggested it may have been an odeon with a seating capacity of between 150 and 200 people; see Uziel, Lieberman, and Solomon (2019, 245–48). Odea were, initially at least, designed for small-scale concerts and recitals; but this distinction blurred over time and varied depending upon the size and resources of individual cities.

2023, Courtney J. P. Friesen, Acting Gods, Playing Heroes, and the Interaction between Judaism, Christianity, and Greek Drama in the Early Common Era, Routledge, →ISBN, page 30:

An ancient Greek or Roman building used for performances of music and poetry.


coryphaeus

en-noun

coryphaeus (plural coryphaeuses or coryphaei)

coryphaeuses (plural)
coryphaei (plural)

/ˌkɔɹəˈfiːəs/

/ˌkɒɹɪˈfiːʌs/

Borrowed from Latin coryphaeus, from Ancient Greek κορυφαῖος (koruphaîos, “leader of the chorus in an Ancient Greek drama”), from κορυφή (koruphḗ, “top of the head, crown”) (possibly ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *ḱerh₂- (“head, top; horn”)) + -ῐος (-ios, suffix forming adjectives meaning ‘belonging to, pertaining to’).

Then the coryphæus finishes the remaining part of the strophe. But when they have returned to order, Bacchus again interposes by beginning the antistrophe β', which the coryphæus ought to have done.

1830, Gottfried Hermann, Gottfried Hermann, translated by John Seager, Hermann's Elements of the Doctrine of Metres, page 165:

The chorus, that is those members of the komos who have not become specialized as actors and continue singing and dancing, are headed by a coryphaeus, who sometimes addresses them, exhorting them to action, or to begin the song or the rite, or else anticipates or summarizes their words, or represents them in conversation with the actors.

1975, Francisco Rodríguez Adrados, “Festival, Comedy and Tragedy: The Greek Origins of Theatre”, in Christopher Holme, transl., [1972, Festia, Comedia y Tragedia], page 250:

Post-classical references to the famous ‘chorus-trainer’ Sannio indicate that his role extended to performing and thus taking the coryphaeus role. The coryphaeus was both leader and teacher, and in performance played a crucial role in setting the time that the other dancers followed.

2000, David Wiles, Greek Theatre Performance: An Introduction, page 135:


pay-off

At the current monthly payment level, it'll take 32 more months to reach pay-off.

A payment in full; the state of having been paid in full.


aerialist

/ˈɛəɹɪəlɪst/

[…] I chanced once, when I called during the day, to meet at the rehearsal M’lle Clarisse, the aerialist […] I looked at her carefully, and I could not divest myself of the impression that she was, in spite of her compact and strongly built little frame, much too delicate and fragile a person to go flying through the air from trapeze to trapeze.

1879 December, Edward Dusseault, “Recollections of Other Days”, in Ballou’s Monthly Magazine, volume 50, number 6, page 564:

Of the two ways of making love, adultery must seem the safer, as the aerialist engaged in it swings to an eventual stop, or else lands in marriage itself which is strung out protectively under the highwire. Whereas a man failing in marriage has nothing to break the tumble.

1959, Peter De Vries, chapter 14, in The Tents of Wickedness, Boston: Little Brown, page 210:

The migratory birds
have flown the coop
but they’ll be back
with their built-in compass.
They’ll come back the way
the circus does each year—
with aerialists, our angular
birds that loop the loop.

1969 December 14, Anne Sexton, “Eighteen Days Without You”, in The Complete Poems, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, published 1981, pages 216–217:

There was a good-looking Argentinian couple standing in the open flap of their tent. They were aerialists, checking over each other’s harnesses, testing the strength of the metal grommets where the guy wires would be attached to them.

2015, John Irving, chapter 16, in Avenue of Mysteries, New York: Simon & Schuster:

Videos of their feats, showing Spiderman^([sic])-like aerialists clinging to stone facades and balcony edges before plunging streets into darkness with the flick of an elevated switch, have been popular on social media since the start of the trend.

2022 October 13, Constant Méheut, “With Leaps and Bounds, Parkour Athletes Turn Off the Lights in Paris”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2022-10-13:

An acrobat performing high off the ground, defying a fall to earth, as on a trapeze or a tightrope.


dramatic beat

(theater, film) The smallest division of action in a play, film or other work of drama; The moment at which increasing dramatic tension produces a noticeable change in the consciousness of one or more characters.


byplay

byplay (countable and uncountable, plural byplays)

[...] there had been some amusing byplay with the enginemen as to what might be expected to happen if the engines failed to behave themselves properly.

1959 October, Cecil J. Allen, “Locomotive Running Past and Present”, in Trains Illustrated, page 477:

The father-son byplay is occasionally overdone and tedious, but there is a genuine warmth in both the Oland-Luke and the Toler-Sen Yung teamings.

1983, Frank Northen Magill, Magill's American film guide, volume 1, page 647:

(theater) Any action, carried out onstage during a performance, apart from the main action.

controscena

any action carried out onstage during a performance, apart from the main action


thunderbox

From thunder + box. Senses 1 and 2 (“portable commode; any lavatory or toilet”) are probably because of the noises that may be made while using it, especially while defecating.

[T]wo articles, both indispensibly necessary to a theatre, are not blundered, viz. a property room, and thunder box!—no they are omitted altogether!!

1806 September, Argus [pseudonym], “Provincial Drama, &c.”, in The Monthly Mirror: Reflecting Men and Manners. […], volume XXII, London: […] J. Wright, […] [a]nd published by Vernor, Hood, and Sharpe, […], →OCLC, pages 205–206:

[H]e [the English actor West Digges] said, "Take the child to the slips;" and I was led through the carpenter's gallery, the cloudings and thunder boxes, and placed in a good seat, where I saw the play with great delight.

1833 May, O’Keeffe, “The Late Mr. O’Keeffe”, in Edward Bulwer-Lytton, editor, The New Monthly Magazine and Literary Journal, volume XXXVIII, 2nd part, number CXLIX, London: [F]or Henry Colburn by Richard Bentley, […], →OCLC, page 37:

It was what is called a good passage, and a feather in the Casco’s cap; but among the most miserable forty hours that any one of us had ever passed. We were swung and tossed together all that time like shot in a stage thunder-box.

1891 February–December, Robert Louis Stevenson, “Hatiheu”, in In the South Seas […], New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, published 1896, →OCLC, part I (The Marquesas), page 65:

The pouring and pattering of rain and the beating of hail require four different contrivances. The most novel of these is a wooden box, about twelve feet long and six inches square, inside of which are numerous slanting sheets of tin, punctured with small holes. A number of peas are rushed continuously up and down the box, rolling over the punctured tin and tumbling from one sheet to the other in a manner like that described of the iron balls in the "thunder box."

1892 January, “Ingenious Stage Machinery”, in The Theatre: A Record of the Stage, Drama, Music, Art, Literature, volume VIII, number 1 (number 179 overall), New York, N.Y.: The Theatre Publishing Company, →OCLC, page 32, column 1:

Thundercrashes, on the other hand, are made by a number of barrel strakes, suspended above one another on a rope to one side of the stage. At a given signal they are allowed to drop to the floor with a crash, followed by loud peal of thunder from the thunderbox.

1991, Paul Britten Austin, transl., edited by Hans Åstrand, Inger Mattsson, and Gunnar Larsson, Gustavian Opera: An Interdisciplinary Reader in Swedish Opera, Dance, and Theatre, 1771–1809 (Kungliga Musikaliska Akademiens Skriftserie [Royal Academy of Music Book Series]; 66), Stockholm: Kungliga Musikaliska Akademien [Royal Swedish Academy of Music], →ISBN, →ISSN, page 101:

(theater) A box of metal balls which is shaken to create a thunder sound effect.


bottler

From Middle English boteller, botullere, equivalent to bottle + -er. Piecewise doublet of butler.

A Punchman's assistant who collects money ("bottle") from the audience.


hacky

en-adj

hacky (comparative more hacky, superlative most hacky)

more hacky (comparative)
most hacky (superlative)

(comedy, informal) Hackneyed (lacking significance through having been overused; unoriginal and trite)


comedically

en-adv

comedically (comparative more comedically, superlative most comedically)

more comedically (comparative)
most comedically (superlative)


parterre

Borrowed from French parterre (“on the ground”), from par (“on”) + terre (“ground”).

Brussels
Buckinghamshire
Cliveden
Parterre
Parterre (theater audience)
Taplow

(theater) A part of the section of theater seats located on the ground floor, on the same level as the orchestra.

The part of the ground-floor section nearest the orchestra and the stage; the stalls.

(British) The part of the ground-floor section behind the stalls and underneath the galleries; the pit.

That was Selwyn's first encounter with the Ruthvens. A short time afterward at the opera Gerald dragged him into a parterre to say something amiable to one of the amiable débutante Craig girls—and Selwyn found himself again facing Alixe.

1907 August, Robert W[illiam] Chambers, chapter III, in The Younger Set, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC:

(theater, by extension) That part of a theater audience seated in the parterre, sometimes regarded as belonging to a lower social class.


nub

Either directly from Middle Low German, or from knub, from a Middle Low German word (compare Low German Knubbel, Knobbel (“knot; lump”)). Compare knob.

cog

A nub is a passage of blank verse that Shakespearean actors have sometimes relied upon when they forget their lines. It doesn't have to make any sense, but it must sound plausible. To alert the other actors on stage that the speaker is in difficulty, the word nub is used in the first line.

2009, David Crystal, Walking English, Overlook Press, page 183:

To an audience a clever nub can pass for Shakespeare himself.

2013, Heathcote Williams, Nubbing, Cold Turkey Press:

(theater) A passage of Shakespearean blank verse.


metafiction

en-noun

metafiction (usually uncountable, plural metafictions)

From meta- + fiction, coined in 1970 by William H. Gass

Julian Barnes's Flaubert's Parrot (1984) and Peter Ackroyd's Hawksmoor and Chatterton may be described as accomplished examples of historiographic metafiction, the kind of self-conscious, heavily parodic and experimental historical […]

1999, Susana Onega Jaén, Metafiction and Myth in the Novels of Peter Ackroyd, Camden House, →ISBN, page 1:

In the previous chapter, I presented a heuristic explanation of the development of metafiction. In this chapter, I turn to some texts written before the 1980s to demonstrate that the binary between realism and metafiction is not fixed.

2010, Evan Mwangi, Africa Writes Back to Self: Metafiction, Gender, Sexuality, SUNY Press, →ISBN, page 65:

A form of self-referential literature concerned with the art and devices of fiction itself.


joking

Twenty euros cover charge? You're joking me!

(British, US, Ireland, colloquial, transitive) Kidding, trying to fool.


clownish

en-adj

clownish (comparative more clownish, superlative most clownish)

more clownish (comparative)
most clownish (superlative)

Even worse, the zombies' clownish makeup, with a stark white base and black shoe polish around the eyes, looks amateurish.

1998, Bryan Senn, Drums of Terror: Voodoo in the Cinema:

Once again, City's defending was clownish. James McArthur drove into the area on the left and pulled a low cross towards the far post, where the horribly timid Gaël Clichy allowed Perch to bundle the ball past Costel Pantilimon.

2014 March 9, Jacob Steinberg, “Wigan shock Manchester City in FA Cup again to reach semi-finals”, in The Guardian:

Indeed, when in close quarters to Rooney, it must prove almost irresistible to stick a plastic moustache and silly clownish shoes on the potato-headed fool.

2005 May 14, Laura Barton, The Guardian:

Resembling or characteristic of a circus clown; comical, ridiculous.


box set

(theater) A set with a proscenium arch stage and three walls, creating the appearance of an enclosed room.


jobber

Most of the music circuses use jobbers in four to eight of the leading roles for each show. These jobbers are principal actors who are employed for one or two leading roles during the season. There is no difference between a star and a jobber, except that a jobber is not necessarily a "big-name" performer […]

1957, Lorna Marie Wildon, A survey of contemporary American musical arena theatres, and an analysis of problems of organization and production:

Jobbers are used as needed.

1986, J. Allen, The 1986 Summer Theater Guide, page 83:

(theater) An actor temporarily employed for a specific role, often in a touring company.


warhorse

a Wagner warhorse

I remember taking the old warhorse, “Una Voce Poco Fa,” from Il Barbiere (Rossini) to three of the greatest living singing masters in Italy.

1910, Millie Ryan, What Every Singer Should Know, Omaha, Nebr.: Franklin Publishing Co.:

Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo[…] presented a typical program of Russian warhorses of the 19th and early 20th centuries[…]

1997 August 6, Jennifer Dunning, “Horsing Around With Balletic Warhorses”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:

A Mendelssohn Warhorse Gets the Perlman Treatment [title]

1995 August 5, Anthony Tommasini, “A Mendelssohn Warhorse Gets the Perlman Treatment”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:

[…] the ROH mounts a new production of an Italian repertory warhorse that is fully on the level of the one it replaces […

2006 June 11, Stephen Jay-Taylor, “Tosca dress”, in rec.music.opera (Usenet):

(theater, music) A regularly revived theatrical or musical work, as with Hamlet or a Beethoven symphony, or as excerpts thereto. May imply that the work in question has become hackneyed.


planking

en-noun

planking (countable and uncountable, plural plankings)

[…] but, like planking, horsemanning, Tebowing, Hadoukening, and other viral photography memes, as a genre of public performance, dance in public is greatly facilitated by the channels of distribution that social media offer, […]

2020, Harmony Bench, Perpetual Motion: Dance, Digital Cultures, and the Common:

The practice of lying face down with arms to the sides, in unusual public spaces, and taking photographs to record the act.


humourously

en-adv

humourously (comparative more humourously, superlative most humourously)

more humourously (comparative)
most humourously (superlative)

(UK, Canada, uncommon, nonstandard) Alternative spelling of humorously


jocularly

jocularly (comparative more jocularly, superlative most jocularly)

more jocularly (comparative)
most jocularly (superlative)

He was in such a good mood that he even managed to take out the rubbish jocularly.

She was not embarrassed at all so she told the story jocularly.

Sullenly, jocularly, resentfully, or derisively, names and addresses were extorted from the company, and each member given a jerk of the head to get out of this.

1938, Norman Lindsay, Age of Consent, 1st Australian edition, Sydney, N.S.W.: Ure Smith, published 1962, →OCLC, page 160:


greasepaint

en-noun

greasepaint (countable and uncountable, plural greasepaints)

A mixture of grease and coloring matter used as theatrical makeup.


overstage

(theater, of lighting, machinery etc) Above the stage.


stage left

en-adv

stage left (comparative more stage left, superlative most stage left)

more stage left (comparative)
most stage left (superlative)


batten

The noun is from Middle English bataunt, batent (“finished bar or board (as for panelling)”), from Old French batent (“a beating”), a noun use of the present participle form of batre (“to beat, hit, strike”), from Late Latin battere, the present active infinitive of battō (“to beat”), from Latin battuō (“(very rare) to beat, hit, strike”); further etymology uncertain, possibly from Proto-Indo-European *bʰedʰ-, *bʰedʰh₂- (“to pierce; to stab”) or *bʰat- (“to hit”), ultimately onomatopoeic.
The verb is derived from the noun.

der

A strip of wood holding a number of lamps; especially (theater), one used for illuminating a stage; (by extension, also attributive) a long bar, usually metal, affixed to the ceiling or fly system and used to support curtains, scenery, etc.

tanko

long bar affixed to the ceiling or fly system and used to support curtains, etc.


understage

When deep pits, required in the understage for the machinery and traps, cannot be drained on account of insufficient depth of the street sewer

1900, William Paul Gerhard, Theatres: Their Safety from Fire and Panic, Their Comfort and Healthfulness, page 97:

The understage being only 9 feet (5 braccia) high, the mountain had to rise in telescoping stages

1996, James M. Saslow, The Medici wedding of 1589: Florentine festival as Theatrum Mundi, page 86:

dozens of strapping stage-hands in the understage manipulating warships, cannons dispatching balls of fire, blue smoke.

2001, Augusto Boal with Adrian Jackson and Candida Blaker, Hamlet and the baker's son: my life in theatre and politics:


stage right

en-adv

stage right (comparative more stage right, superlative most stage right)

more stage right (comparative)
most stage right (superlative)


downstage

en-verb

downstage (third-person singular simple present downstages, present participle downstaging, simple past and past participle downstaged)

downstages (present singular third-person)
downstaging (participle present)
downstaged (participle past)
downstaged (past)

(medicine, transitive) To restage downward; to restage (a case of a disease, usually a cancer) to a lower stage than that found at last assessment (compare upstage).


Father Time

Marry, sir, by a rule as plain as the plain bald pate of Father Time himself.

c. 1594 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Comedie of Errors”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene ii]:

A personification of time as an old man, usually carrying an hourglass.


mug up

mug up (third-person singular simple present mugs up, present participle mugging up, simple past and past participle mugged up)

mugs up (present singular third-person)
mugging up (participle present)
mugged up (participle past)
mugged up (past)

(intransitive, slang, theater, obsolete) To paint one's face or put on a costume for the purpose of impersonation.


Jack Frost

From Jack (“placeholder or conventional name for any man”) + frost.

ref

Arthur Henry Brown ([1863]) Little Jack Frost Quadrilles, London: B. Williams, →OCLC.

This time of Year being cold and frosty generally speaking, or when Jack Frost commonly takes us by the Nose, the Diversions are always within Doors, either in Exercise or by the Fire-side.

1740, “Of Mirth and Jollity, Christmas Gambols, Eating, Drinking, Kissing, and Other Diversions of the Holydays”, in Round about Our Coal-fire, or Christmas Entertainments …, London: […] J. Roberts […], →OCLC; republished as Christmas Entertainments: […], London: Field & Tuer, Yᵉ Leadenhall Presse; Simpkin, Marshall & Co.; Hamilton, Adams & Co., 1883, →OCLC, page 6:

Well, and the inside is all lined with skins, warm enough; and there's a fire in the middle; [...] Jack frost may whistle out doors if he pleases, but he can hardly get his nose in here.

1818, Isaac Taylor, “Lapland. 10. Lapland Witch Selling a Wind.”, in Scenes in Europe, for the Amusement and Instruction of Little Tarry-at-home Travellers, London: […] J. Harris, […], →OCLC, page 11:

December's severely cold nights made dreadful havoc with the soldiers[’] toes on the out posts, where for six long hours without fire or aught to shield from Jack Frost’s intrusion, they trod their lonely beat, dreaming of home and friends far away.

1870, George Wise, “Falls Church, Upton’s and Munson’s Hills”, in History of the Seventeenth Virginia Infantry, C.S.A., Baltimore, Md.: Kelly, Piet & Company, →OCLC, page 47:

Autumn has given way to winter once more, and happily the late and heavy rains fattened the ripening crops now reaping; and left everywhere through this district a thick growth of grass, for winter grazing; long enough, generally, to shield from Jack Frost, by its ample tops and seed heads, a bite of succulent stalk above the roots.

1901 June 1, Maynard Matthews, “District Reports”, in The Agricultural Journal and Mining Record, volume IV, number 7, Pietermaritzburg, Natal Province: Times Printing and Publishing Company, published 7 June 1901, →OCLC, pages 196–197:

Ma said that Jack Frost came in the night and made the pictures, while everyone was asleep. Laura thought that Jack Frost was a little man all snowy white, wearing a glittering white pointed cap and soft white kneeboots made of deerskin.

1932, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Little House in the Big Woods, New York, N.Y.: Harper, published 2016, →ISBN:

Chestnuts roasting on an open fire / Jack Frost nipping at your nose / Yuletide carols being sung by a choir / And folks dressed up like Eskimos

1945, “The Christmas Song: Merry Christmas to You: S.A.T.B. with Incidental Soprano Solos and Piano Accompaniment”, Mel Tormé, Bob Wells (lyrics), Mel Tormé (music), New York, N.Y.: E. H. Morris, published 1946, →OCLC:

Winter is damp, dark and cold, but the new year makes me hopeful of the spring and summer to come, [...] Animals need extra care, logs are brought in to unfreeze by the fire, the ice is scraped off the car. Jack Frost paints glorious pictures on (single-glazed) windows.

2006, Sally Schweizer, “Celebrations: ‘She’s Crying for Joy!’”, in Well, I Wonder: Childhood in the Modern World: A Handbook for Parents, Carers and Teachers (Bringing Spirit to Life), Forest Row, East Sussex: Sophia Books, →ISBN, page 169:

Elves, flying reindeer, wood sprites, talking snowmen, and even Jack Frost, or Grandfather Frost in Russia, are all out and about during Advent. [...] Jack Frost, as those of us who live in northern climates well know, can be an annoying sprite who will make winter icy or stormy on a whim.

2013, Marci Alborghetti, “December 15: Jack Frost … and Friends”, in It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christ’s Mass, Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, →ISBN, page 15:

A personification of frosty weather or winter.


out-of-universe

An out-of-universe explanation for Dr. Watson's wife calling him James in one story is that Doyle forgot his given name had already been established as John.

Referring to a perspective or view from the real world, in contrast to a perspective from within the fictional world.


rimshot

(colloquial) A percussive sting or flourish used to punctuate a joke in a cabaret or vaudeville act.


jocosity

en-noun

jocosity (countable and uncountable, plural jocosities)

(uncountable) The state of being jocose.


Grand Guignol

Popular form of Le Théâtre du Grand-Guignol.

(historical) A Parisian theatre which specialized in grotesque and grisly horror shows.


omniverse

(science fiction) The entire set of co-existing universes, multiverses, etc.


joky

en-adj

joky (comparative jokier, superlative jokiest)

jokier (comparative)
jokiest (superlative)


jokey

jokey (comparative more jokey, superlative most jokey)

more jokey (comparative)
most jokey (superlative)


in-universe

Referring to Lord Voldemort as the most feared person in the world is an in-universe classification in the Harry Potter series.

And in Mass Effect 2, you can find a secret dossier on the synthetic Geth sniper called Legion, which was created solely to preserve its species. This dossier shows that this apparently serious Geth spends a lot of processing time playing video games — ranging from playing as a Level 612 Ardat-Yakshi Necromancer in Galaxy of Fantasy, an in-universe MMO with over eleven billion players, to being a max-scoring sniper in Code of Honor: Medal of Duty.

2017, Jordan Erica Webber, Daniel Griliopoulos, “On utilitarianism: BioWare's baddies”, in Ten Things Video Games can Teach Us, Little, Brown Book Group, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 243:

The Star Wars novels, comics, video games, television series, and radio shows created between 1977 and 2012 all constitute an original Expanded Universe (EU) of in-universe history and lore set within the same transmedia franchise.

2019, Monica Louzon, “Mara Jade, Frontier Woman”, in Melanie A. Marotta, editor, Women's Space, Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, →ISBN, page 29:

Referring to a perspective or view from the context of a fictional world, in contrast to a perspective from the real world.


staging

en-noun

staging (countable and uncountable, plural stagings)

The 1984 premiere production (and, judging from a few reviews, the subsequent stagings) was much more solemn.

1988 April 15, S.L. Wisenberg, “On Stage: cartoon characters in a drama of death”, in Chicago Reader:


Guffmanesque

en-adj

Guffmanesque (comparative more Guffmanesque, superlative most Guffmanesque)

more Guffmanesque (comparative)
most Guffmanesque (superlative)

From the name of the producer in the 1995 mockumentary Waiting for Guffman, + -esque.

(theater, of a production, mildly derogatory) amateurish or mawkish, but believed worthy of critical praise by its participants


play doctor

If Shakespeare lived to-day he would have waited four years to have his first comedy read and accepted—after which it would have been re-written by the stage carpenter and the leading lady and put on with interpolated songs and a costume chorus with a play doctor in the rear of the theater keeping track of the laughs with a hand comptometer.

1912 July 19, The Evening Telegram, Elyria, Ohio:

A professional who is called in to revise a play written by someone else.


play doctor

en-verb

play doctor (third-person singular simple present plays doctor, present participle playing doctor, simple past and past participle played doctor)

plays doctor (present singular third-person)
playing doctor (participle present)
played doctor (participle past)
played doctor (past)

To pretend to be doctor and patient as a form of child play.

[…] Jimmie volunteered, […] "How can you have kids if you don't play doctor?"

1931 October, R. L. Whitely, “Interviewing the Problem Boy”, in E. George Payne, editor, The Journal of Educational Sociology, volume V, number 2, Albany, page 99:

By the time they are six, they may play doctor and take one another's rectal temperature or place objects into their orifices, […]

1988, Lynn Leight, Raising Sexually Healthy Children, New York: Avon Books, published 1990, →ISBN, page 226:

(sexuality, usually of minors) To explore or sexually engage with another person's private parts, particularly in the context of roleplay of a medical nature.

leikkiä lääkäriä

to engage in sexual role-play of a medical nature


cream pie

en-noun

cream pie (countable and uncountable, plural cream pies)

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-cream pie.wav

A pie filled entirely with cream, used as a prop in slapstick films and television.


deckhand

Sometimes actors set props on the spikes, or sometimes a deckhand will do it, depending on the action of the play.

2020, John Ramsey Holloway, Zachary Stribling, Illustrated Theatre Production Guide, page 15:


punchline

Arguably, without Jones, Monty Python’s Flying Circus (1969-74) would not have revolutionised British TV comedy. He was key in developing the show’s distinctively trippy, stream-of-consciousness format, where each surreal set-up (the Lumberjack Song, the upper-class twit of the year show, the dead parrot, or the fish-slapping dance) flowed into the next, unpunctuated by punchlines.

2020 January 22, Stuart Jeffries, “Terry Jones obituary”, in The Guardian:


sense of humor

US standard spelling of sense of humour.


gallows humour

(British spelling) Alternative form of gallows humor


sense of humour

sense of humour (plural senses of humour)

I prefer to think that birds have a sufficiently developed sense of humour to enjoy the spectacle of a human being hunched beneath a bush kissing the back of their hand.

1980, Bill Oddie, Bill Oddie's Little Black Bird Book, page 112:

The man’s right leg had been completely crushed in the crash, and he was losing a lot of blood.
“Mr Goodie,” began the doctor as soon as Dad had been rushed into the Accident and Emergency department at the hospital. “I have some very bad news. We have to amputate your leg.”
“Which one?” replied Dad, not losing his sense of humour at this dark time.
“The right one, of course. If we don’t operate straight away, there is a very real chance you will die.”

2017, David Walliams [pseudonym; David Edward Williams], “Crushed in the Crash”, in Bad Dad, London: HarperCollins Children’s Books, →ISBN, page 16:

A person’s faculty for finding certain things funny.


humorist

(medicine, now rare, historical) Someone who believes that health and temperament are determined by bodily humours; a humoralist.

She and the duke used to rally me upon my fondness for lord W—m, who was a sort of an humourist, and apt to be in a pet, in which case he would leave the company, and go to bed by seven o'clock in the evening.

1751, [Tobias] Smollett, The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle […], volume (please specify |volume=I to IV), London: Harrison and Co., […], →OCLC:

I called on him and found him a contemporary of Beauclerk and Langton at Trinity College, Oxford, and a man of reading and animation, but a kind of humourist.

1792, James Boswell, in Danziger & Brady (eds.), Boswell: The Great Biographer (Journals 1789–1795), Yale 1989, p. 175

(obsolete) Someone subject to whims or fancies; an eccentric.

Peter, after the manner of man at the breakfast table, had allowed half his kedgeree to get cold and was sniggering over a letter. Sophia looked at him sharply. The only letter she had received was from her mother. Sophia's mother was not a humourist.

1921, Ben Travers, chapter 1, in A Cuckoo in the Nest, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, published 1925, →OCLC:

Art Buchwald, who satirized the follies of the rich, the famous and the powerful for half a century as the most widely read newspaper humorist of his time, died Wednesday night in Washington.

2007 January 18, Richard Severo, “Art Buchwald, 81, Columnist and Humorist Who Delighted in the Absurd”, in The New York Times:

But when it comes to conveying what made these people funny, what impact they had in their day and, especially, what debt they are owed by present-day humorists, Johnson doesn’t put much meat on the old bones.

2010 December 24, Neil Genzlinger, “What’s So Funny?”, in The New York Times:

A humorous or witty person, especially someone skilled in humorous writing or performance.

One who studies or portrays the humours of people.


billing

billing (countable and uncountable, plural billings)

Actors that may have higher status in the industry won't always get top billing: if they only played a bitpart then it would go to the person whose character was the main focus of the movie.

2014, Nicolae Sfetcu, The Art of Movies:

When Corbyn finally gave a speech – in a stunning piece of billing that could only happen at Glastonbury, he appeared between hip-hop duo Run the Jewels and Southampton’s foremost R&B loverman Craig David – the crowd brought the entire area around the Pyramid stage to a standstill

2017 June 26, Alexis Petridis, “Glastonbury 2017 verdict: Radiohead, Foo Fighters, Lorde, Stormzy and more”, in the Guardian:

(chiefly film, theater) The act or situation of including someone or something among those that make up a complete list.


merry-andrew

Alternative spelling of Merry Andrew; clown; buffoon.


strophe

Borrowed from Latin stropha, itself a borrowing from Ancient Greek στροφή (strophḗ, “a turn, bend, twist”). Compare strap and strop.

der

(prosody) A pair of stanzas of alternating form on which the structure of a given poem is based.


the man

The man gets you down.

I'm sorry I couldn’t meet you earlier, but I spent all night working for the man.

It starts when you're always afraid / Step out of line, the man come and take you away

1966 December, Stephen Stills, “For What It's Worth”performed by Buffalo Springfield:

“Bitch, shut up that noise!” Cowboy hissed hotly from somewhere in the darkness ahead of her. “You wanna bring the man down on me or somethin’? […]”

1968, Nathan C. Heard, Howard Street, New York: The New American Library, pages 22–23:

Left a good job in the city / Workin' for the man every night and day

1969, John Fogerty (lyrics and music), “Proud Mary”, in Bayou Country, performed by Creedence Clearwater Revival:

And in between sips of Coke / He told me that he thought we were sellin' out / Layin' down, suckin' up to the man / Well now I've got some / Advice for you, little buddy / Before you point the finger / You should know that I'm the man / I'm the man and you're the man / And he's the man as well

1996, “Hooker with a Penis”, performed by Tool:

[…]once people such as Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk show up to your party, there is no longer anything countercultural about it. You are not rebelling against the man. You are the man.

2023 September 5, Arwa Mahdawi, “Why all the Burning Man schadenfreude? Where do I start ...”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:

The oppressive powers that be, including the government and corporations; the system, as coordinated outside of one’s control.


lime

en-noun

lime (countable and uncountable, plural limes)

From Middle English lyme, lym, lime, from Old English līm, from Proto-West Germanic *līm, from Proto-Germanic *līmaz, from Proto-Indo-European *h₂leyH- (“to smear”).
Cognate with Saterland Frisian Liem (“glue”), Dutch lijm, German Leim (“glue”), Danish lim (from Old Norse lím), Latin limus (“mud”).

der

Sellers moved on until he was actually trusted to operate the limes, the spotlights that can make or destroy an artist's act.

1980, Peter Evans, Peter Sellers: The Mask Behind the Mask, page 30:

Then out of the blue, a spotlight much like the “limes” in a theatre, lit up what seemed like a Punch and Judy tent […] He struggled even more, when from out of the shadows and into the bright light of the limes, stepped Uncle Jolly.

2018, Robert Charles Hines, Twists and Turns: 13 Tales of the Uneasy, page 121:


roadhouse

/ˈɹəʊdˌhaʊs/


jokester

/ˈd͡ʒəʊkstə/


narrative structure

en-noun

narrative structure (plural narrative structures)

(narratology) The structural framework that underlies the order and manner in which a narrative is presented to a reader, listener, or viewer.


subplot

1978, R.B. Lee & R. Misiorowski, Script Models: A Handbook for the Media Writer,
Subplot, a story line enclosed within the principal story to provide relief from the main plot's tension, add character dimension, etc.

Structurally, the two most variant scenes (outside of Scene ii) are Scenes 3 and 4 in which the compiler works out the variant subplot.

1998, Stephen Roy Miller, The Taming of a Shrew: the 1594 quarto:

In a sense, Superman's romance with Lois Lane was a subplot and [...]

2001, Dennis O'Neil, The DC Comics Guide to Writing Comics:

2001, Nancy Arbuthnot Johnson, Vic Neufield, Forging Links for Health Research,
But this story has a subplot — a subplot about fairness and how people have divergent levels of access to knowledge and resources.

A plot within a story, subsidiary to the main plot.


Hibernia

/hɪˈbɜː(ɹ)nɪə/

Learned borrowing from Latin Hibernia, which see.


shinigami

/ˌʃɪn.ɪˈɡɑːmi/

Borrowing from Japanese 死に神 (shinigami).

(Japanese mythology) A deity and/or personification of death.


John Law

A personification of law enforcement; a police officer.


callback

(theater) A follow-up audition in casting.

When the album succeeds, such as on the swaggering, Queen-esque “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us,” it does so on The Darkness’ own terms—that is, as a random ’80s-cliché generator. But with so many tired, lazy callbacks to its own threadbare catalog (including “Love Is Not The Answer,” a watery echo of the epic “I Believe In A Thing Called Love” from 2003’s Permission To Land), Hot Cakes marks the point where The Darkness has stopped cannibalizing the golden age of stadium rock and simply started cannibalizing itself. And, despite Hawkins’ inveterate crotch-grabbing, there was never that much meat there to begin with.

2012 August 21, Jason Heller, “The Darkness: Hot Cakes (Music Review)”, in The Onion AV Club:

(comedy) A joke which references an earlier joke in the same routine.


Pierrot

French Pierrot, diminutive of Pierre (“Peter”) via diminutive suffix -ot.

Coordinate term: Pierrette

I'll win them by politeness, and... and... show them that I've nothing to do with that Aesop, that buffoon, that Pierrot, and have merely been taken in over this affair, just as they have.

1912, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, translated by Constance Garnett, The Brothers Karamazov, published 1880, Book II, chapter 8:

And he was attending that fancy-dress ball, mark you--not, like every other well-bred Englishman, as a Pierrot, but as Mephistopheles […]
"He said that the costume of Pierrot, while pleasing to the eye, lacked the authority of the Mephistopheles costume."

1934, P. G. Wodehouse, Right Ho, Jeeves:

The rest of the family then invades the studio, three boys dressed as Pierrots and three girls dressed as Pierrettes.

2019, Karl Toepfer, Pantomime, page 741:

A character from French pantomime; a buffoon in a loose white outfit; a popular choice for a masquerade costume.


playbill

A poster advertising a theatrical performance.


soliloquize

en-verb

soliloquize (third-person singular simple present soliloquizes, present participle soliloquizing, simple past and past participle soliloquized)

soliloquizes (present singular third-person)
soliloquizing (participle present)
soliloquized (participle past)
soliloquized (past)

"Now, I am quite sure that our beautiful hostess has been making an assignation," soliloquised Charles, who, for want of something better to do, had been watching the various actions of the group in the principal chamber in the castle, […]

1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XXXIV, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume III, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 276:

I rubbed my hands with delight over my happy notion, and soliloquised aloud, "What a joy there is in going about doing good actions."

1899, Knut Hamsun, “Part III”, in George Egerton [pseudonym; Mary Chavelita Dunne Bright], transl., Hunger […], London: Leonard Smithers and Co […], →OCLC, page 164:

(intransitive, drama) Of a character: to perform a soliloquy, to talk to oneself.


capitano

en-noun

capitano (plural capitanos or capitanoes or capitani)

capitanos (plural)
capitanoes (plural)
capitani (plural)

From Italian capitano. Doublet of captain and chieftain.

One of the four stock characters of commedia dell'arte who typically appropriated the name "captain" for himself but was not one; he was often a blowhard and a swaggerer who could maintain his self-important claims only if none of the locals knew him.


King Cotton

/ˌkɪŋˈkɒtn̩/

(obsolete) A personification of the cotton production of the southern United States.


foreshadowing

foreshadowing (usually uncountable, plural foreshadowings)

The roses blooming before Rose herself bloomed was excellent foreshadowing.

As an experienced editor I disapprove of backflashes, foreshadowings and tricksy devices […]

2004, David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas, London: Hodder and Stoughton, →ISBN:

(literature, usually uncountable) A literary device whereby an author drops hints or symbolic representations of plot developments to come later in the story.


clownishness

clownishness (usually uncountable, plural clownishnesses)


snoot

From Scots snoot, snout (“snout”), from Middle English snowte, from Middle Dutch snute; ultimately from Proto-West Germanic *snūt, from Proto-Germanic *snūtaz. Doublet of snout.

Snoots have traditionally been round in shape when attached to studio strobes, but with flash photography, they have taken on a more rectangular shape because the flash heads are rectangular.

2014 December 26, Alyn Stafford, Flash Techniques for Location Portraiture: Single and Multiple-Flash Lighting Techniques, Amherst Media, →ISBN, page 36:

(theater, photography) A cylindrical or conical attachment used on a spotlight to restrict spill light.

veitsi

theater: cylindrical or conical attachment on a spotlight


snoot

en-verb

snoot (third-person singular simple present snoots, present participle snooting, simple past and past participle snooted)

snoots (present singular third-person)
snooting (participle present)
snooted (participle past)
snooted (past)

Which might mean shaping it, gelling it, snooting it, barn dooring it, and putting it on a stand or a clamp. Maybe taking the dome diffuser off. Perhaps zooming it. Oh my. And you thought you were just taking a picture.

(transitive, theater, photography) To apply a snoot attachment to (a light).


final curtain

(theater) The last time the curtain is lowered, after a performance and any curtain calls.

esiripun laskeminen

(theatre) the last time the curtain is lowered


groundling

From ground + -ling. Compare Old English grundling (“a groundling fish, grundel”).

cog

O, it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who for the most part are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb-shows and noise.

c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii]:

when your Groundling, and gallery-Commoner buyes his sport by the penny, and, like a Hagler, is glad to utter it againe by retailing.

1609, Thomas Dekker, chapter VI, in The Guls Horn-Booke, London: J.M. Dent, published 1936, page 47:

The flag is up on the playhouse by the bankside. The bear Sackerson growls in the pit near it, Paris garden. Canvasclimbers who sailed with Drake chew their sausages among the groundlings.

1922 February, James Joyce, Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company, […], →OCLC:

Passion, and passion in its profoundest, is not a thing demanding a palatial stage whereon to play its part. Down among the groundlings, among the beggars and rakers of the garbage, profound passion is enacted.

1888–1891, Herman Melville, “[Billy Budd, Foretopman.] Chapter XI.”, in Billy Budd and Other Stories, London: John Lehmann, published 1951, →OCLC:

In fact, most of the mob did not know there was such a thing as a director, and it was the actors and the student orchestra whom the groundlings applauded.

1943, Sinclair Lewis, chapter VIII, in Gideon Planish, London: Jonathan Cape, page 71:

...the penny-paying groundlings stand in the yard hurling abuse or encouragement and hazelnuts or orange peel at the actors, while the sophisticates in the covered galleries appreciate Shakespeare's soaring poetry.

2010, (William Shakespeare), Jonathan Bate & Eric Rasmussen, Twelfth Night, →ISBN, page 159:

An audience member in the cheap section (usually standing; originally in Elizabethan theater).


OP

en-noun

OP (countable and uncountable, plural OPs)

(theater) Initialism of opposite prompt; stage right.


retcon

A blend of retroactive + continuity. The term retroactive continuity was popularized by comics writer Roy Thomas, who was known for writing superhero comic books set decades in the past such as All-Star Squadron, and attributes it to an anonymous source.

TLC: What do you say to the Legion fans who have become disenfranchised with the series due to its various retcons and reboots?

2003, Glen Cadigan, The Legion Companion, page 152:

Fans talk of retcon—retroactive continuity—giving information that explains an earlier event, especially seeming plot contradictions or lacunae.

2005, Rhonda Wilcox, Why Buffy Matters: The Art of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, page 9:

It's a little trick called retcon, short for "retroactive continuity," […]
Yet I'm unsure even Millar is fully aware of the power given him by the retcon.

2006, Glenn Yeffeth, editor, The Man from Krypton: A Closer Look at Superman, page 155:

A situation, in a soap opera or other fiction, in which a new storyline explains or changes a previous event or attaches a new significance to it.


comically

en-adv

comically (comparative more comically, superlative most comically)

more comically (comparative)
most comically (superlative)

Masters and Johnson wanted their work to be taken seriously, and wanted to stay a step ahead of the morality police, so they tended to write in almost comically dense medicalese.

2009 June 26, Dwight Garner, “Out of the Bedroom, Into the Clinic”, in The New York Times:


forestage

en-verb

forestage (third-person singular simple present forestages, present participle forestaging, simple past and past participle forestaged)

forestages (present singular third-person)
forestaging (participle present)
forestaged (participle past)
forestaged (past)

From Middle English forstage, equivalent to fore- + stage.

There is subtle thought, even profound thought, not so much in the working out of the plots as in the selection and forestaging of such humorous situations as make the plots work themselves out.

1925, O. Henry, Works - Volume 13, page xxiii:

Yet, despite the invocation of cultural practices in images, the facade setting preventing the spectators' attention from wandering to an outside environment, prevented spectators from seeing the action as a natural aspect of a total environment by forestaging the action as a construct in response to particular situations.

1991, Susan Lisbeth Chast, Ellen Stewart and La Mama: A Study of Theatrical Spaces:

(theater) To block so that someone or something appears in the forestage.


blinder

When the 'blinders' are switched off, and the audience's eyes given time to re-adjust, the new scene is in place […]

(theater) A bright light used to blind the audience temporarily during a scene change.


dreamworld

From dream + world. Compare West Frisian dreamwrâld (“dreamworld”), Dutch droomwereld, dromenwereld (“dreamworld”), German Traumwelt (“dreamworld”), Danish drømmeverden (“dreamworld”), Swedish drömvärld (“dreamworld”).

At midnight they left the air-conditioned dream-world and entered the oven of the street.

1958, Anthony Burgess, The Enemy in the Blanket (The Malayan Trilogy), published 1972, page 358:

An imaginary world, such as experienced while dreaming.


stage manager

A person responsible for the organization of a stage production, and who is in charge of the stage during the performance.


funniness

en-noun

funniness (countable and uncountable, plural funninesses)

(uncountable) The quality of being funny.


one-percenter

one + percent + -er. After Thomas Edison: "Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration." The motorcycling sense comes from a supposed 1948 statement by the American Motorcycle Association that 99% of motorcyclists are good people enjoying a clean sport, and it is only 1% who are antisocial.

(comedy) An esoteric joke which is unlikely to be appreciated by a general audience.


running gag

→ German: Running Gag

Some groaners are converted into running gags, as when Joel and his brother (Max Greenfield) get in a duel of parting, one-last-thing-before-you-go affirmations.

2014 June 26, A. A. Dowd, “Paul Rudd and Amy Poehler Spoof Rom-com Clichés in They Came Together”, in The A.V. Club, archived from the original on 2017-12-07:

An ongoing joke, one that is regularly repeated or continued.


humourist

Humorologists study humour and humourists, smile therapists believe in the therapeutic value of cheer and humoropathists promote a 'cacchination (guffawing) cure' for serious illness ('Vitamin C and Laurel and Hardy').

2002 January 12, “What's the word?”, in The Guardian:

I only met the late and much-missed humourist once, but he had an impact on my life that hasn't been mentioned in the other fond tributes.

2007 October 30, Ali Catterall, “Alan Coren launched my criminal career”, in The Guardian:

(British) Alternative spelling of humorist


stage whisper

'[…]When the division was announced, he chuckled exceedingly, and in a stage whisper exclaimed, "Grey is check-mated !" '

1869, “Lives of Lord Lyndhurst and Lord Brougham”, in The Edinburgh Review, volume CXXIX, pages 568–569:

Near to the audience the stage whisper was not much louder, although more distinct, than an ordinary whisper in private life.

1887, Sir Frederick Pollock, Personal Remembrances of Sir Frederick Pollock, page 248:

Perhaps because of this, the convention of the 'stage whisper' came into being. All that distinguishes it from the true whisper is that a very little amount of voice in introduced and so what you end up with is extremely breathy voice production[…]

1998, Michael McCallion, The Voice Book, page 189:

"Pretty legs," said Rebo in a stage whisper as Peter slowed down.

2001, Shelley Freydont, High Seas Murder, page 326:

(theater) A line that is performed on stage as if it were whispered, but is spoken loud enough that the audience can hear.


stage whisper

en-verb

stage whisper (third-person singular simple present stage whispers, present participle stage whispering, simple past and past participle stage whispered)

stage whispers (present singular third-person)
stage whispering (participle present)
stage whispered (participle past)
stage whispered (past)

The duet was embellished with stage-whispered solos [...]

1878, Things in General, volume 2, p. 132:

“The captain's voice, by G–!” said the stage-whispering ruffian, and both robbers fled by the way of the back door, shutting off their bull's-eye as they ran.

1883, Mark Twain, Life on the Mississippi, chapter 31 "A Thumb-print and What Came of It"

[...] Bobbie sprang at me like a leopardess. “What on earth are you fooling about for like this, Bertie?” she stage-whispered.

1960, P[elham] G[renville] Wodehouse, chapter XVI, in Jeeves in the Offing, London: Herbert Jenkins, →OCLC:

Into this melodrama stepped the American defence secretary, Leon Panetta. He stopped in both countries, urged both sides to get along better and affirmed America’s pledge of mutual defence with Japan—though an unnamed senior American military official stage-whispered to the Washington Post that America wouldn’t go to war “over a rock”.

2012 September 22, “East Asian rivalry: protesting too much”, in The Economist:

There is some evidence to suggest that in whispered speech, particularly stage whispered speech, the larynx is raised appreciably.


straight man

For many years Bud Abbott served brilliantly as Lou Costello's deadpan straight man.

Recently he had successfully concluded a case featuring a poet who wore only latex, lived on liquorice allsorts and worshipped a horse she believed to be the reincarnation of Radclyffe Hall. And she was the straight man.

2010, Caroline Graham, A Ghost in the Machine, Hachette UK, →ISBN:

She was the straight man, he was the comedian, and their audience was “standing room only” when they stepped up to the microphone.

1982 April, Pam Hait, “Sandra Day O’Connor: Warm, Witty and Wise”, in The Ladies' Home Journal, volume 99, page 46:

(idiomatic) A member (of any gender) of a team of comic performers who plays a supporting role by helping to set up jokes and punch lines through engaging in dialog with another comedian playing a more eccentric or otherwise more interesting character; a foil who plays such a role in theatrical comedy.

hétköznapi embert/figurát játszó/alakító komikus

бе́лый кло́ун m (bélyj klóun, literally “white clown”)


dumb show

en-noun

dumb show (countable and uncountable, plural dumb shows)

O it offends mee to the Soule, to ſee a robuſtious Pery-wig-pated Fellow, teare a Paſſion to tatters, to verie ragges, to ſplit the eares of the Groundlings: who (for the moſt part) are capeable of nothing, but inexplicable dumbe ſhewes, & noiſe: […]

c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii], page 266, column 2:

The expression “literary and artistic works” shall include every production in the literary, scientific and artistic domain, whatever may be the mode or form of its expression, such as books, pamphlets and other writings; lectures, addresses, sermons and other works of the same nature; dramatic or dramaticomusical works; choreographic works and entertainments in dumb show; […]

1977, Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works (Berne Convection), Article 2http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Convention_for_the_Protection_of_Literary_and_Artistic_Works/Articles_1_to_21

(theater) A performance during which the players do not speak; mime.


novum

novum (countable and uncountable, plural novums or nova)

In his book Metamorphoses of Science Fiction (1979), Suvin introduced a number of ideas that remain central in sf criticism: cognitive estrangement, the novum and sf's genetic link with utopia.[…]Even more influential in sf theory than cognitive estrangement is Suvin's concept of the novum.[…]Suvin adopts the concept of the novum from the work of Ernst Bloch, for whom the term refers to those concrete innovations of lived history that awaken human collective consciousness out of a static present to awareness that history can be changed. The novum thus inspires hope for positive historical transformations.

2003, Istvan Csicsery-Ronay, Jr., “7: Marxist theory and science fiction”, in Edward James, Farah Mendlesohn, editors, The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction, Cambridge University Press, page 118:

It seems that this ‘point of difference’, the thing or things that differentiate the world portrayed in science fiction from the world we recognise around us, is the crucial separator between SF and other forms of imaginative or fantastic literature. The critic Darko Suvin has usefully coined the term ‘novum’, the Latin for ‘new’ or ‘new thing’, to refer to this ‘point of difference’ (the plural is ‘nova’). An SF text may be based on one novum, such as [...]. More usually it will be predicated on a number of interrelated nova, such as [...]. This ‘novum’ must not be supernatural but need not necessarily be a piece of technology.

2006, Adam Roberts, Science Fiction, Taylor & Francis (Routledge), pages 6–7:

cognitive estrangement
cognitive estrangement

(narratology, science fiction) An innovation which is fictional, but, following the logic of cognitive estrangement (characteristic of science fiction), is afforded plausibility by the assumption that the fictional setting is scientifically consistent.


seriocomic

en-adj

seriocomic (comparative more seriocomic, superlative most seriocomic)

more seriocomic (comparative)
most seriocomic (superlative)

Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead is a seriocomic romp through the summer of a group of teenagers.

In the N-Town Passion Play I, Lucifer is an implied presenter of the play and an implied controller of its events. He addresses the audience directly and confidentially in an extraordinary 124-line adoxograph which is part social satire and part seriocomic plea for our commitment to his suzerainty […]

2005, John W. Velz, “Adoxography as Mode of Discourse for Satan and His Underlings in Medieval Plays”, in Clifford Davidson, editor, The Dramatic Tradition of the Middle Ages [AMS Studies in the Middle Ages; 26], New York, N.Y.: AMS Press, →ISBN, page 102:

Having both serious and comedic qualities or tendencies.

serio-comic

having both serious and comedic qualities or tendencies


romcom

Shortening of romantic comedy. Probably based on the earlier sitcom.


sardoodledom

Named after French dramatist Victorien Sardou + doodle + -dom, coined by Irish playwright, critic, and polemicist George Bernard Shaw who first used it on the 1 June, 1895 in the Saturday Review when criticising Sardou's well-made plays.

coin

Naturally this critic loses no chance to express his contempt for what he calls “Sardoodledom:” the cult of the “wellmade” play. He gives M. Sardou no bail, and barely allows Mr. Pinero to go at large on good behavior.

[1907 April, H. W. Boynton, “Mr. Shaw as Critic”, in The Atlantic:

What is new is that we have in movies an art form so exclusively given over to Sardoodledom that a Yale professor thinks that Sardoodledom is ingrained in the celluloid.

2010 [1946], Eric Bentley, The Playwright as a Thinker: A Study of Drama in Modern Times, 4th edition, University of Minnesota Press, →ISBN, page 34:

(uncommon) Well-made works of drama that have trivial, insignificant, or melodramatic plots.


hilariously

en-adv

hilariously (comparative more hilariously, superlative most hilariously)

more hilariously (comparative)
most hilariously (superlative)

a hilariously funny joke

In a hilarious manner; so as to amuse greatly.


ringmaster

The person who manages the performers in a circus ring.

sprechstallmeister

the person who manages the performers in a circus ring


supervillain

A fantasy-fiction criminal or evil-doer, often with supernatural powers or equipment, in popular children's and fantasy literature who can present a credible challenge for a superhero.

суперзлодей

a fictional criminal or evil-doer with superpowers


dangler

/ˈdæŋɡlə(ɹ)/

Similarly, participles ending in “ing” often cause danglers in scientific writing: […]

2014, Silvia M. Rogers, Mastering Scientific and Medical Writing: A Self-help Guide, page 43:

(grammar, informal) A dangling participle.


transpontine

Such transpontine spectacles are not usually seen in our local theatre.

Blood and thunder melodrama was once transpontine : it is now cispontine. It has crossed the Thames, and come over the bridges.

1882, The Theatre: A Monthly Review and Magazine, page 35:

(theater, historical) Of or relating to the sensational melodramas presented on the south side of the Thames in the 19th century or earlier.


clown shoe

A comedically oversized shoe, usually brightly colored and with a bulbous front.


hilariousness

The characteristic of being hilarious; hilarity.


tragicomedy

en-noun

tragicomedy (countable and uncountable, plural tragicomedies)

/ˌtɹædʒɪˈkɒmədi/

Borrowed from Middle French tragicomédie (whence French tragicomédie), itself borrowed from Italian tragicommedia, from Latin tragicōmoedia, tragicocōmoedia. By surface analysis, tragic + comedy, with haplology.

bor+

(uncountable) The genre of drama that combines elements of tragedy and comedy.

(countable) A drama that combines elements of tragedy and comedy.


off-book

(theater) Able to perform scripted material from memory, without need to refer to the text.


presto change-o

"It doesn't just go one, two, three, presto, change-o, you're cured."

1975, Laura Keane Zametkin Hobson, Consenting Adult, Doubleday, →ISBN, page 85:

1984, Audrey Wood, Presto Change-O, Child's Play, →ISBN:

Then tell them to read the sentence on the front of each flap, open the flap, and read the sentence inside. Presto Change-o! Common nouns are transformed into proper nouns, right before nouns, right before their eyes!

2001, Karen Kellaher, Writing Skills Made Fun: Parts of Speech, →ISBN, page 13:

But then that little psychopath Willie Bosket murdered a couple of subway riders for the hell of it when he was fifteen and -- presto change-o! -- a new law was born.

2006, Peter Blauner, Slipping Into Darkness: A Novel, Little, Brown, →ISBN, page 3:

(informal) Alternative form of presto chango


in medias res

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-in medias res.wav

Borrowed from Latin in mediās rēs (literally “into the middle of things”).

bor

Anyway, the characters have been introduced but by no means established. I know Final Fantasy’s always been big on in medias res, but even the most basic questions about the plot remain unanswered. Who the fuck are these people? What is going on? Why should I care? Can I stop playing now? Please?

2010 (March 31ˢᵗ, 5:00pm): Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw, “Final Fantasy XIII” reviewed by Zero Punctuation, 2:03–2:16


miscue

(theater) The act of missing one's cue or of responding to a cue intended for another actor.


miscue

en-verb

miscue (third-person singular simple present miscues, present participle miscuing or miscueing, simple past and past participle miscued)

miscues (present singular third-person)
miscuing (participle present)
miscueing (participle present)
miscued (participle past)
miscued (past)


wakashu

Borrowed from Japanese 若衆 (“young person”).

A role in kabuki traditionally played by a boy of this age category.


upstaging

A situation where somebody or something is upstaged; thus:

(theater, also figurative) A stealing of the spotlight, as (or as if) one performer eclipses another in the audience's attention.


gigging

(film, music, television, theater) The act of engaging in a musical performance, acting in a theatre production, etc.


antithalian

en-adj

antithalian (comparative more antithalian, superlative most antithalian)

more antithalian (comparative)
most antithalian (superlative)

Mr Toobad described her as being […] altogether as gloomy and antithalian a young lady as Mr Glowry himself could desire for the future mistress of Nightmare Abbey.

1818, Thomas Love Peacock, Nightmare Abbey:

an ascetic component that has caused many postrevolutionary societies, whatever their ideology, to become so unspeakably antithalian after the initial period of creative euphoria is over.

1990, Houchang E. Chehabi, Iranian Politics and Religious Modernism: The Liberation Movement of Iran Under the Shah and Khomeini, I.B.Tauris, →ISBN, page 82:


prop comic

Carrot Top is a well-known prop comic; he often comes on stage with a huge box of odd objects.

A comedian whose performances use common or unusual objects as physical aids to help achieve a humorous effect.


prop comedy

In his zany prop comedy Gallagher would sometimes smash watermelons and splatter the front rows of the audience.

A style of comedic performance in which common and/or unusual objects are used as physical aids to help achieve a humorous effect.


escape artist

An entertainer who performs escapes from perilous situations such as cages, coffins, and straitjackets.


ghost train

(theater) An excursion done by many tourist railways around the world. Usually, a fictional story is created and performed with static displays or live actors on either side of a train. Actors and actresses play out a story on the long and narrow stage provided by the railcar aisles.


catch-breath

[…] it is possible to obtain the desired effect by allowing sections or individuals within a section to take an unobtrusive catch-breath at different times.

1940, Van Ambrose Christy, Glee Club and Chorus: A Handbook, page 55:

(drama, singing) A pause to take a breath.


shadow play

en-noun

shadow play (countable and uncountable, plural shadow plays)

The project invokes aesthetics particularly associated with children: play, craft, and amateurism. Indeed, especially in segments that employ elements such as a spotlight and shadowplay, Green Porno is reminiscent of an elementary-school pageant.

2018, Nicole Seymour, Bad Environmentalism, page 86:

(hand games) An ancient form of storytelling and entertainment using opaque, often articulated figures in front of an illuminated backdrop to create the illusion of moving images.

тэатр ценяў

form of storytelling using opaque figures in front of an illuminated backdrop


open up

en-verb

open up (third-person singular simple present opens up, present participle opening up, simple past and past participle opened up)

opens up (present singular third-person)
opening up (participle present)
opened up (participle past)
opened up (past)

In stage acting, we are frequently asked to cheat out to the audience by opening up our body positions so that we are something halfway between facing them and our partner.

2015, Robert Barton, Acting: Onstage and Off, page 184:

(theater) Synonym of cheat out (“to face or turn toward the audience more than would be natural”)


stand-up comedy

comedy performed on stage by a single comedian.


happy ending

And how was this happy ending to be brought about? Why, by this very eaſy and trite expedient; to wit, by reforming Lovelace, and marrying him to Clariſſa.

1784, The Novelist's Magazine, volume XV, London: Harrison and Co., page 1263, column 1:

The heroine was killed, and since then the happy ending has only been preserved in an appendix in the play.

1827 June 8, The Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Advertiser, page 4, column 3:

Life is not to be conceived on the analogy of a melodrama in which the hero and heroine go through incredible misfortunes for which they are compensated by a happy ending.

1930, Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness:

Death ends all things and so is the comprehensive conclusion of a story, but marriage finishes it very properly too and the sophisticated are ill-advised to sneer at what is by convention termed a happy ending.

1944, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, chapter 1, in The Razor’s Edge […], 1st American edition, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Doran & Co., →OCLC, section i, page 1:

Well, what did you expect in an opera? A happy ending?

1957 July 6, What’s Opera, Doc?, spoken by Bugs Bunny (Mel Blanc):

Modern romance, like Greek tragedy, celebrates the mystery of dismemberment, which is life in time. The happy ending is justly scorned as a misrepresentation; for the world, as we know it, as we have seen it, yields but one ending: death, disintegration, dismemberment, and the crucifixion of our heart with the passing of the forms that we have loved.

1968, Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, 2nd edition, London: Fontana Press, published 1993, page 25:

And she said: / "Don't you know that storybook loves, / Always have a happy ending."

1987, “Storybook Love”, Willy DeVille (music):

(literature) A clichéd conclusion in which all loose ends are tied up and all main characters are content.


happily ever after

en-noun

happily ever after (plural happily ever afters)

A story with such a happy ending, such as a romance novel or fairy tale.


eccyclema

eccyclema (plural eccyclemas or eccyclemata)

eccyclemas (plural)
eccyclemata (plural)

Learned borrowing from Ancient Greek ἐκκύκλημα (ekkúklēma).

lbor

A wheeled device, used in ancient Greek plays, that could be rolled out to allow a tableau to be viewed.

el:εκκύκλημα


alternate universe

en-noun

alternate universe (plural alternate universes)

There are moments when he seems to be writing something on the order of Jorge Luis Borges's "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius"—an amazing fragment about the alternate universe where every book contains its counterbook, where things become duplicated and "also tend to become effaced and lose their details when they are forgotten."

1980, Maxine Greene, “Response to Philip Jackson,”, in Curriculum Inquiry, volume 10, number 2, page 173:

This American President exists in an alternate universe from the one the real Bill Clinton must inhabit.

1995 November 20, Richard Corliss, “Where Nice Guys Finish First”, in Time:

(literature, narratology) An imaginary realm, often a variant form of the real world, depicting a different way events could have unfolded or the universe could have functioned.


MacGuffin

Alfred Hitchcock
MacGuffin#History_and_use
Ulster

Used by Alfred Hitchcock, as an arbitrary Scottish surname. The actual name comes from Ulster: Mc- (“son of”) + Irish dubh (“black”) + Irish Fionn (literally “fairheaded”).
See also Wikipedia's MacGuffin § History and use.

af

" […] But we wound up realizing you really can't top yourself. You just tell a different story and hope the new MacGuffin is as compelling as the last MacGuffin."

2000, Steven Spielberg, Lester D. Friedman, Brent Notbohm, Steven Spielberg: Interviews:

A paleontologist lately returned from an expedition to Wyoming, where he unearthed the bones of the first brontosaurus (and supplied guns to the Indians on behalf of the Foreign Office, which had succeeded in its policy of balkanizing the North American continent) Mallory comes into possession of the MacGuffin during a Derby Day encounter with Byron's daughter (and Babbage's protégée) Ada. Thereafter he is hounded by a whole rogue's gallery of villains bent on reclaiming the MacGuffin.

(narratology) A plot element or other device used to catch the audience's attention and maintain suspense, but whose exact nature has fairly little influence over the storyline.


dressing room

/ˈdɹɛsɪŋ ɹʊm/

/ˈdɹɛsɪŋ ɹuːm/

Going into a dressing-room full of established players was not easy. It was like Lancashire all over again only more so.

2005, Andrew Flintoff, “England Debut”, in Being Freddie: The Story So Far, London: Hodder & Stoughton, →ISBN:

As half-time approached with Everton desperate to get into the dressing room and regroup, Liverpool were awarded a penalty for [Phil] Jagielka's rash challenge on [Luis] Suarez. This time there was no disputing [Martin] Atkinson's decision, but [Tim] Howard rescued Everton by diving low to his left to keep out [Dirk] Kuyt's spot-kick.

2011 October 1, Phil McNulty, “Everton 0 – 2 Liverpool”, in BBC Sport, archived from the original on 2016-03-07:

A room used for dressing or changing clothes.

(UK) A changing room at a recreational or sports venue.


callboy

→ Cebuano: callboy

(theater) A boy or man who summons actors when their presence is required for a performance.


flashforward

This "Lone Ranger" begins and ends in a flash-forward, with an elderly Tonto installed in a carnival diorama behind a sign that reads "The Noble Savage."

2013, “Depp’s Tonto: an upgrade on a stereotype or just an updated stereotype?”, in The Washington Post:

(narratology) A dramatic device in which a future event is inserted into the normal chronological flow of a narrative.


onnagata

/ˌɒnəˈɡɑːtə/

From Japanese 女形 (おんながた, onnagata), a compound of 女 (おんな, onna, “woman”) + 形 (かた, kata, “form”).

A male actor who plays female roles in Japanese kabuki theatre.


lolcat

(Internet, neologism) An image macro of, usually, a kitten or a cat with a humorous caption.

lolcat

image macro of a kitten or cat with a humurous caption


kitchen-sinky

en-adj

kitchen-sinky (comparative more kitchen-sinky, superlative most kitchen-sinky)

more kitchen-sinky (comparative)
most kitchen-sinky (superlative)

From kitchen sink + -y. Sense 1 alludes to the phrase everything but the kitchen sink, sense 2 to the phrase kitchen sink realism.

Not that Warner's is merely a domesticated version of Euripides. It stars, after all, that least kitchen-sinky of actors.

2001 February 4, Susannah Clapp, “Mother knows best”, in The Guardian:

"Here was a kid who was imagining things and inventing things and none of this was odd to her, mum and dad being junkies. I didn't want to comment; I just present the story. And I didn't want to be too kitchen-sinky, because it's a heightened reality."

2007 April 29, Stephanie Bunbury, “Tide and emotions”, in The Age:

"He takes this seedy little story of seedy little people in seedy little rooms, and he makes it big and operatic and grandiose. I love that. It could have all been documentary-like or a bit kitchen sinky, and all rough and tough. […]

2011 February 7, Gina Picallo, “Helen Mirren interview”, in The Telegraph:

(drama) Of or pertaining to the kitchen sink drama; depicting social realities in an unstylized and direct manner.


stock company

a company of actors regularly employed at one theater, or permanently acting together in various plays under one management


dry humor

Humor that is presented with no change of expression; deadpan.


thalian

thalian (comparative more thalian, superlative most thalian)

more thalian (comparative)
most thalian (superlative)


supe

John Wilkes would go south to Richmond, to join Ford's stock company at the old Marshall Theatre for the 1858–59 season. More work as a supe awaited “J. B. Wilkes,” but his wages this time would be better than in Philadelphia: $440 for the season, the same as his older brother earned in a week.

2010, Nora Titone, My Thoughts Be Bloody:

(dated, slang, theater) Clipping of supernumerary.: An extra or walk-on.


Mother Earth

We had not gone thirty paces from the shaft when far down in the depths my iron dart shot into the nerve ganglion of old Mother Earth and the great moment had arrived.

1928 February 25 – March 3, Arthur Conan Doyle, “When the World Screamed”, in The Professor Challenger Stories […], London: John Murray, […], published [1952], →OCLC, page 574:

The personification of the Earth, (chiefly) conceived as a fertile, nurturing, and loving mother.


autodiegetic

(literary) Pertaining to a narrator who is also the protagonist.


heterodiegetic

(narratology) Of or relating to a narrator that does not take part in the plot.


magic carpet

Have you ever been, have you ever been, to Electric Ladyland? / The magic carpet waits for you, so don't you be late

1968, Jimi Hendrix (lyrics and music), “Have You Ever Been (To Electric Ladyland)”, in Electric Ladyland, performed by The Jimi Hendrix Experience:

(fiction) A carpet capable either of magical flight, or instantaneous transport from one place to another, used as a means of travel.


fat

fat (comparative fatter, superlative fattest)

fatter (comparative)
fattest (superlative)

Of sense: lean

carrying a larger than normal amount of fat; antonym(s) of

Sranan Tongo: fatu

From Middle English fat, from Old English fǣtt (“fatted, fat”), from Proto-West Germanic *faitid (“fatted”), originally the past participle of the verb *faitijan (“to make fat”), from *fait (“fat”).

chubby

He is what the theatre calls a “fat” role — a man suddenly confronted by a terrible duty. He is called upon to revenge the murder of his father and to right a wrong against the state.

1965, Edmund Fuller, A Pageant of the Theatre, page 131:

He seeks a fat role in a hit show, lest he diminish his market value.

1997, Harold Clurman, On Directing, page 12:

Joe Hirakawa, formerly of the Seattle Civic Repertory Theatre, was a waterfront peddler in “Madame Butterfly” and had a fat role in “Beauty Parlor,” an indie.

2012, Greg Robinson, Larry S. Tajiri, Pacific Citizens, page 9:

(theater) Of a role: significant; major; meaty.


love interest

Some of the greatest and most widely-appreciated literary achievements have been wholly or mainly independent of love-interest or love-inspiration. Religious fervour, zeal for liberty, admiration of abstract virtue, philanthropy, desire to search the heart of man, and contemplation of the beauties and splendours of the outward world,—all these prove to be motives as capable of firing and exalting the imagination as the more directly personal stimulus of love.

1875 July, “the London Hermit” [pseudonym], “Essays and Sketches. On Love in Fiction.”, in Dublin University Magazine. A Literary and Political Journal, volume LXXXVI, number DXI, Dublin: George Herbert, […], London: Hurst & Blackett, Melbourne, Vic.: George Robertson, →OCLC, page 113, column 1:

"The Hand of Peril" is subtitled by its author, Mr. Arthur Stringer, "a novel of adventure," whereas I should label it a six-cylinder detective story. […] Incidentally, the ligament that holds these six morsels together is, of course, a "love-interest" between the detective and the chief criminal's putative daughter and assistant.

1915 September, Henry Brinsley, “Latest News from the Literary Trenches”, in Frank Crowninshield, editor, Vanity Fair, volume 5, number 1, New York, N.Y.: Vanity Fair Publishing Company, →OCLC, page 94, column 1:

The love interest is supplied by the Colonel's grandson and the daughter of the inventor of a horseless wagon.

1926 December, [Arthur Hornblow, Sr.], “Mr. Hornblow Goes to the Play”, in F. E. Allardt, editor, Theatre Magazine: For the Lovers of the Stage and the Screen, volume XLIV, number 309, New York, N.Y.: Theatre Magazine Company, →OCLC, page 72, column 2:

(film, literature) A romantic plot or subplot in a film or book.


paraprosdokian

From Ancient Greek παρά (pará, “against”) + προσδοκία (prosdokía, “expectation”).

This style of comic poetry, a kind of parody of the Ballad, a series of quatrains generally leading up to a paraprosdokian or surprise in the fourth line, was initiated by [Oliver] Goldsmith in this merry tale.

1906, J. C. Stobart, The Johnson Epoch (Epochs of English literature), volume VII, London: E. Arnold, page 144:

Figure of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected, often humorously.