subs. (old).—1.  Orig. a buffoon’s foil: his office consisted in making awkward and ludicrous attempts to mimic the professional jester or clown. Hence (2) a mimic; and (3) an attendant. As verb = to play the fool, to mimic, to dance attendance (B. E. and GROSE); whence also such derivatives as ZANYISM. Cf. SAWNEY.

1

  1567.  EDWARDS, Damon and Pithias [DODSLEY, Old Plays (HAZLITT), iv. 74] [T. L. KINGTON-OLIPHANT, The New English, i. 566. A servant speaks French to astonish a friend, and calls him petit ZAWNE (ZANY or sawny)].

2

  1598.  FLORIO, A Worlde of Wordes, s.v. ZANE … the name of JOHN, in some parts of Lombardy, but commonly used for a SILLY JOHN, a simple fellow, a servile drudge, or foolish clowne, in any comedy or enterlude play.

3

  1599.  JONSON, Every Man out of his Humour, iv. 2.

                        For, indeed,
He’s like the ZANI to a tumbler,
That tries tricks after him to make men laugh.
    Ibid. (1600), Cynthia’s Revels, ii. 3.
  The other gallant is his ZANY, and doth most of these tricks after him, and sweats to imitate him in everything.

4

  1602.  SHAKESPEARE, Twelfth Night, i. 5. I take these wise men, that crow so at these set kind of fools, no better than the fools’ ZANIES.

5

  1602.  MIDDLETON, Blurt, Master-Constable, iii. 1. Imperia, the courtesan’s ZANY hath brought you this letter from the poor gentleman in the deep dungeon, but would not stay till he had an answer.

6

  1602.  MARSTON, Antonio and Mellida, II. iv. 1.

        Laughes them to scorne, as man doth busie apes
When they will ZANIE men.

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  c. 1605.  DRAYTON, An Elegy, 1256.

        As th’ English apes, and very ZANIES be,
Of everything that they do hear and see.

8

  c. 1618.  FLETCHER, The Queen of Corinth, i. 2.

                        All excellence
In other madams do but ZANY hers.

9

  1632.  HEYWOOD, The Foure Prentises of London [Works (1874), II. 203].

        Ile teach thee; thou shalt like my ZANY be:
And feigne to do my cunning after me.

10

  d. 1658.  LOVELACE, Works, II. 78.

        As I have seen an arrogant baboon,
With a small piece of glass, ZANY the sun.

11

  1668.  DRYDEN, An Evening’s Love, Preface. Approbation which those very People give, equally with me, to the ZANY of a Mountebank.

12

  1726.  POPE, The Dunciad, iii. 206. Preacher at once, and ZANY of thy age!

13

  1849.  COLERIDGE, Course of Lectures, ix. The caricature of his filth and ZANYISM proves how fully he both knew and felt the danger.

14

  1856.  MOTLEY, The Rise of the Dutch Republic, I. 402. [Granvelle] had been wont, in the days of his greatest insolence, to speak of the most eminent nobles as ZANIES, lunatics, and buffoons.

15

  1869.  Edinburgh Review, July. The ZANY in Shakespeare’s day was not so much a buffoon and mimic as the obsequious follower of a buffoon, and the attenuated mime of a mimic.

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