vbl. sb. [f. CLOWN v. + -ING1.] Playing the clown.
1861. Mayhew, Lond. Labour, III. 121. My knowledge of penny-gaff clowning.
1878. H. Irving, Stage, 27. At Sadler’s Wells, where previously there had been nothing but clowning and spectacle.
fig. 1889. Times, 30 Jan., 9/5. We shall have no more of the blundering to which we owe his last bit of political clowning.
