Also 7 buffonnerie, 7–8 buffon-, buffoonry. [f. BUFFOON sb. + -ERY.] The practice of a buffoon; low jesting or ridicule, farce.
1621. Bp. Mountagu, Diatribæ, 450. Flatterie and Buffonrie swayed all in the Romane Senate.
1631. Weever, Anc. Fun. Mon., 685. Ianglery, buffonnerie, and such other vices.
1670. G. H., Hist. Cardinals, I. III. 81. They are the first that laugh and applaud any Buffonry.
1745. Fielding, True Patr., Wks. 1775, IX. 296. Power and government … have been set up as the butts of ridicule and buffoonry.
1751. Johnson, Rambl., No. 125, ¶ 6. This conversation … degenerates too much towards buffoonery and farce.
1875. Jowett, Plato (ed. 2), III. 132. You may often laugh at buffoonery which you would be ashamed to utter.
