Also 6–7 farse, 6 Sc. farsche. [a. (in 16th c.) F. farce, app. a metaphorical use of farce stuffing: see prec.
The history of the sense appears to be as follows: In the 13th c. the word (in latinized form farsa, farsia) was applied in France and England to the various phrases interpolated in litanies between the words kyrie and eleison (e.g., ‘Kyrie, genitor ingenite, vera essentia, eleison’); to similar expansions of other liturgical formulæ; and to expository or hortatory passages in French (sometimes in rime) which were inserted between the Latin sentences in chanting the epistle. (The related vb. L. farcire, OF. farcir to stuff, hence to ‘pad out,’ interlard, was used in the same connexion in the expressions epistola farcita, un benedicamus farci. See Du Cange, s.vv. Farsa, Farsia, and Burney, Hist. Music, II. 256.) Subsequently the OF. farce, with similar notion, occurs as the name for the extemporaneous amplification or ‘gag,’ or the interludes of impromptu buffoonery, which the actors in the religious dramas were accustomed to interpolate into their text. Hence the transition to the modern sense is easy. (The Eccl. Lat. farsa, farcire, referred to above, have been anglicized by mod. writers on liturgical antiquities as FARSE sb. and v.)]
1. A dramatic work (usually short) which has for its sole object to excite laughter.
[14[?]. La Vie de St. Fiacre, in Mysterès inédits 15me Siécle (1837), I. 332. Cy est interposé une farsse.]
1530. Palsgr., 17. Suche as writte farcis and contrefait the vulgare speche.
1530. Lyndesay, Test. Papyngo, 41. In ballatts, farses, and in plesand playis.
1668. Pepys, Diary, 31 July. To the King’s House, to see the first day of Lacy’s ‘Monsieur Ragou’ … a farce.
1726. Amherst, Terræ Fil., xliv. 235. Should have celebrated Oxford … on the most excellent farces so frequently and so well performed in her convocation-house.
1824. W. Irving, T. Trav., I. 274. A tragedy, pantomime, and farce, were all acted in the course of half an hour.
b. That species of the drama which is constituted by such works.
1676. Dryden, Epil. Etheredge’s Man of Mode, 3.
| Those nauseous Harlequins in farce may pass; | |
| But there goes more to a substantial ass. |
1717. Lady M. W. Montagu, Lett., 1 Jan. The scenes were pretty, but the comedy itself such intolerable low farce, without either wit or humour, that I was surprised how all the court could sit there attentively for four hours together.
1756. Hurd, Provinces of Drama, Introd., Wks. (1811), II. 30. My Farce I understand, that species of the drama ‘whose sole aim and tendency is to excite Laughter.’
1877. A. W. Ward, in Encycl. Brit., VII. 438/1. English comedy seemed inclined to leave to farce the domain of healthy ridicule.
2. Something as ridiculous as a theatrical farce; a proceeding that is ludicrously futile or insincere; a hollow pretence, a mockery.
1696. trans. Du Mont’s Voy. Levant, 296. The Farce is too gross and visible; for there is something so moving in true Sorrow, that it can never be counterfeited.
1704. Prior, The Ladle, 139.
| A Ladle! cries the man, a Ladle! | |
| Odzzooks, Corsica, you have pray’d ill; | |
| What should be great, you turn to farce; | |
| I wish the Ladle in your a——. |
1705. W. Wotton, Defense, 57. ’Tis all with him a Farce and all a Ladle, as a very facetious Poet says.
1762. Sterne, Tr. Shandy, V. xv. Unless every one’s Life and Opinions are to be looked upon as a farce.
1791. Burke, Corr. (1844), III. 255. It is quite a farce to talk of his liberty.
1824. W. Irving, T. Trav., I. 246. The buzz of notoriety and the farce of fashion.
1888. Bryce, Amer. Commw., III. lxxxix. 204. These delegates, assembled in convention of the party, duly went through the farce of selecting and voting for persons already determined on by the Ring as candidates for the chief offices.
3. attrib. and Comb., as farce-scribbler, -tragedy; farce-like adj.
a. 1683. Oldham, Horace his Art of Poetry, 362, in Some New Pieces (1684), 19.
| Here they brought rough and naked Satyrs in, | |
| Whose Farce-like Gesture, Motion, Speech, and Meen | |
| Resemble those of modern Harlequin. |
1695. Dryden, trans. Du Fresnoy’s Art Painting, Preface, p. xxvi. Farce-Scriblers make use of the same noble invention [laughter] to entertain Citizens, Country-Gentlemen, and Covent-Garden Fops.
1850. Kingsley, Alt. Locke, xxxvii. Those miserable, awful farce tragedies of April and June.
