[ad. F. comédien, f. L. type *cōmœdiān-us, f. cōmœdia, a. Gr. κωμῳδια COMEDY.]
1. One who plays in comedies, a comic actor. Sometimes ‘a player in general, a stage-player’ (J.).
1601. Shaks., Twel. N., I. v. 194. Are you a Comedian?
1603. Holland, Plutarch’s Mor., 652. A stage for plaiers and commedians.
1697. Potter, Antiq. Greece, I. iv. (1715), 19. Hearing the insipid jests of a Comoedian.
1716. Lady M. W. Montague, Lett., xviii. The king’s company of French comedians play here every night.
1842. J. P. Collier, in Armin, Nest Ninn., Introd. Richard Tarlton … was most famous as, what we now call, a low comedian.
b. fig. One who acts a feigned part in real life.
1673. S. C., Art of Complaisance, i. 6–7. These men says he, are professed Comædians, do you laugh, they strive who should laugh loudest; If they observe that you have any disposition to weep, they dissolve into a torrent of Tears. Ibid., vi. 57. They will scarce ever give ear to him after, regarding him onely as a Comœdian, who says what he thinks not.
2. A writer of comedies, a comic poet.
1581. Sidney, Apol. Poetrie (Arb.), 45. The signifying badge giuen them [characters] by the Comedian.
1622. Peacham, Compl. Gent., x. Scaliger willeth us to admire Plautus as a comedian, but Terence as a pure and elegant speaker.
1691. Wood, Ath. Oxon., I. 128. He was in his younger days a noted Poet and Comedian.
1845. Maurice, Mor. Philos., in Encycl. Metrop. (1847), II. 582/1. The comedian … did nevertheless … take such liberties with the gods of his country, etc.
3. attrib. and Comb.
1609. Ev. Woman in Hum., II. i., in Bullen, O. Pl., IV. A comedian tongue is the only perswasive ornament to win a Lady.
1632. Lithgow, Trav., III. (1682), 108. Sweet Comedian scenes of love Upon a golden Stage.
1663. Pepys, Diary, 1 July. His Lordship had made a long and a comedian-like speech.
1756. Toldervy, Hist. Two Orphans, III. 141. The comedian-like psalm-singer.
