Wiktionary

farce

See also: Farce

English

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Pronunciation

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Etymology 1

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Borrowed from Middle French farce (“comic interlude in a mystery play”, literally “stuffing”). Doublet of farse.

Noun

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farce (countable and uncountable, plural farces)

  1. (uncountable) A style of humor marked by broad improbabilities with little regard to regularity or method.
  2. (countable) A motion picture or play featuring this style of humor.
    The farce that we saw last night had us laughing and shaking our heads at the same time.
    • 1892, Walter Besant, “Prologue: Who is Edmund Gray?”, in The Ivory Gate […], New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], →OCLC:
      Thus, when he drew up instructions in lawyer language […]; his clerks […] understood him very well. If he had written a love letter, or a farce, or a ballade, or a story, no one, either clerks, or friends, or compositors, would have understood anything but a word here and a word there.
  3. (uncountable) A situation abounding with ludicrous incidents.
    The first month of labor negotiations was a farce.
    • 2012 May 9, Jonathan Wilson, “Europa League: Radamel Falcao's Atlético Madrid rout Athletic Bilbao”, in the Guardian:
      The first match in the magnificent new national stadium was a Euro 2012 qualifier between Romania and France that soon descended into farce as the pitch cut up and players struggled to maintain their footing. Amorebieta at times seemed to be paying homage to that game, but nobody else seemed to have a problem; it was just that Falcao was far better than him.
  4. (uncountable) A ridiculous or empty show.
    The political arena is a mere farce, with all sorts of fools trying to grab power.
Hypernyms
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Coordinate terms
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Derived terms
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Translations
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See also
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Etymology 2

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Verb from Middle English farcen, from Old French farsir, farcir, from Latin farciō (“to cram, stuff”). Doublet of farse.

Verb

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farce (third-person singular simple present farces, present participle farcing, simple past and past participle farced)

  1. (transitive) To stuff with forcemeat or other food items.
    • 1923, Walter de la Mare, Seaton's Aunt:
      The lunch […] consisted […] of […] lobster mayonnaise, cold game sausages, an immense veal and ham pie farced with eggs, truffles, and numberless delicious flavours; besides kickshaws, creams and sweetmeats.
  2. (transitive, figurative) To fill full; to stuff.
    • 1678, Robert Sanderson, Pax Ecclesiae:
      The first principles of religion should not be farced with school points and private tenets.
  3. (transitive, obsolete) To make fat.
  4. (transitive, obsolete) To swell out; to render pompous.
    • 1615, George Sandys, “(please specify the page)”, in The Relation of a Iourney Begun An: Dom: 1610. […], London: […] [Richard Field] for W. Barrett, →OCLC:
      farcing his letter with fustian
  5. Alternative form of farse (“to insert vernacular paraphrases into (a Latin liturgy)”)
Translations
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Noun

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farce

  1. (cooking) Forcemeat, stuffing.

Further reading

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Anagrams

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Czech

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Noun

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farce

  1. dative/locative singular of farka

French

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Etymology

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Inherited from Old French farse, from Medieval Latin farsa, feminine perfect passive participle from farcīre, from farciō (“to stuff”). The theatre sense alludes to the pleasant and varied character of certain stuffed food items.[1][2]

Pronunciation

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Noun

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farce f (plural farces)

  1. (cooking) stuffing
  2. (theater) farce
  3. prank, joke
    C’est des farces ?
    Is this a joke?

Derived terms

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Descendants

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  • → Catalan: farsa
  • → Danish: fars
  • → German: Farce
  • → Italian: farsa
  • → Russian: фарш (farš)
  • → Spanish: farsa
  • → Swedish: fars

References

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  1. ^ “farce” in Émile Littré, Dictionnaire de la langue française, 1872–1877.
  2. ^ Walther von Wartburg (1928–2002) “farcire”, in Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch (in German), volumes 3: D–F, page 416

Further reading

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Hausa

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Pronunciation

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  • IPA(key): /fáɽ.t͡ʃèː/
    • (Standard Kano Hausa) IPA(key): [ɸáɽ.t͡ʃèː]

Noun

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farcḕ m (plural farā̀tā, possessed form farcèn)

  1. fingernail
    Synonym: ƙumba

Italian

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Pronunciation

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Noun

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farce f

  1. plural of farcia

Anagrams

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Norman

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Etymology

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(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

Noun

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farce f (plural farces)

  1. (Jersey) batter
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