Also 7 clownry. [f. as prec. + -ERY.]
1. The quality or behavior of a country clown.
1589. Nashe, in Greene, Menaphon (Arb.), 13. Such carterlie varietie … the extremitie of clownerie.
1612. Drayton, Poly-olb., xxiii. (1748), 355. Let the curious tax his clownry with their skill.
a. 1668. Davenant, News fr. Plymouth (1673), 32. Their weak Compound Of clownery and rashness.
1694. R. L’Estrange, Fables, 145. The Fool’s conceit here had both Clownery and ill nature in’t.
b. (with pl.) A clownish act or usage.
1607. Chapman, Bussy d’Ambois, I. Wks. 1873, II. 14. Not mix’d with clowneries us’d in common houses.
2. The performance of a comic clown.
1823. Lamb, Elia (1860), 127. The clownery and pantaloonery of these pantomimes have clean passed out of my head.
1865. Reader, 24 June, 712. I will go to see no tumbling, no clownery, no comic songs.
