Also 6 cloune, cloine, cloyne. [Appears in Eng. in second half of 16th c. as cloyne or cloine, and clowne. The phonetic relation between these is difficult to understand; the former is esp. obscure: possibly a dialect form. By Dunbar, the word (if indeed the same) is written cloun; but it rhymes with tone, Joun, meaning tune, June, both having in Sc. the sound ü (or ö), which would imply (klün). Words identical or closely related appear in several of the cognate langs. and dialects: e.g., NFris. (Moringer dial.) ‘klönne (or klünne) ‘clumsy lout, lumpish fellow’ (Bendsen):—OFris. type *klunda wk. masc. Cf. NFris. insular dial. Amrum klünj (pl. klünjar) ‘clod, clot, lump’ = Sylt klünd ‘clog, wooden mall’:—OFris. type *klund str. masc. Also mod.Icel. klunni:—*klunþi ‘clumsy boorish fellow’ (Vigf.), ‘en klods, ubehændig person’ (Jonson), compared with Sw. dial. klunn, kluns (Rietz) ‘clump, clog, log,’ and Da. dial. klunds = klods ‘block, log, stump,’ also ‘clown.’ In Dutch also, Sewell (1766) has kleun fem. (marked as a ‘low word’) ‘a hoidon or lusty bouncing girl,’ kloen n. with same sense; and he explains Eng. clown as ‘een plompe boer, kinkel, kloen.’ Bilderdijk Verklarende Geslachtlijst (1832) says that kloen applied to a man signifies een lompert, ‘clown’ in English, and so is it with klont, kluit, and kluts or klots, all meaning primarily ‘clod, clot, lump.’ So far as concerns the sense-development, then, it is clear that we have here a word meaning originally ‘clod, clot, lump,’ which like these words themselves (see CLOD 5, CLOT 4), has been applied in various langs. to a clumsy boor, a lout. Of an OE. type, corresp. to the Fris., or to the Du. words, we have no trace, no more than of the occurrence in Eng. of the primitive sense ‘clod’; and it is probable that in Eng. the word is of later introduction from some Low German source.]
1. A countryman, rustic or peasant.
1563. Baldwin, Mirr. Mag., Rivers, xliv. The cloyne contented can not be With any state.
1567. Turberv., Poems, Agst. Ielous Heads, etc. (R.). To brag vpon his pipe the clowne begoon … And then to blow the rustick did assay.
1570. Levins, Manip., 219/44. A cloune, rusticus.
1587. Mirr. Mag., Madan, xi. The clowne that driues the mixen Cart.
1604. Earl Stirling, Aurora, Sonet 24, D 3 b (R.). She [viper] kild the courteous Clowne by whom she liu’d.
1662. Fuller, Worthies, II. 177. Clown from Colonus, one that plougheth the ground, (without which neither King nor Kingdome can be maintained) of which Middlesex hath many of great Estates.
1784. Cowper, Task, IV. 623. The clown, the child of nature, without guile.
1848. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., I. 610. The Somersetshire clowns, with their scythes and the but ends of their muskets, faced the royal horse like old soldiers.
b. Implying ignorance, crassness or rude manners: A mere rustic, a boor.
1565. Golding, Ovid’s Met. (1593), To Rdr. 6. The wise, the foole: the countrie cloine: the learned and the lout.
1646. F. Hawkins, Youth’s Behaviour, vii. § 16 (1663), 32. Put not thy meat in thy mouth, holding thy knife in thy hands, as do the Countrey Clowns.
1733. Cheyne, Eng. Malady, III. Introd. (1735), 262. I seldom ever observ’d a heavy, dull, earthy, clod-pated Clown, much troubled with nervous Disorders.
1848. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., I. 321. Language and pronunciation were such as we should now expect to hear only from the most ignorant clowns.
2. transf. A man without refinement or culture; an ignorant, rude, uncouth, ill-bred man.
1583. Golding, Calvin on Deut. lxxxvii. 538. Euen such as haue beene counted the simplest Cloynes.
1697. Evelyn, Numism., viii. 288. Every rich Clown … who was able to be at the Charges of a Stamp.
1850. Tennyson, In Mem., cxi. The churl in spirit … By blood a king, at heart a clown.
1881. Besant & Rice, Chapl. of Fleet, I. I. iii. 41. How could a courtly gentleman … have a son who was so great a clown in his manner and his talk?
3. A fool or jester, as a stage-character (? orig. representing a rustic buffoon), or (in Shakespeare) a retainer of a court or great house; b. in mod. use, one of the characters in a pantomime or harlequinade; also a similar character in a circus.
[1500–20. Dunbar, Quhy will ȝe, merchantis, 31. Cuningar men man serve Sanct Cloun.]
1600. Rowlands, Lett. Humours Blood, Sat. IV. 60. What meanes Singer then? And Pope the Clowne, to speake so Boorish, when They counterfaite the clownes vpon the Stage? Ibid., Epigr. xxx. (1874), 36. When Tarlton clown’d it in a pleasant vaine Vpon the Stage, his merry humors shop, Clownes knew the Clowne, by his great clownish slop.
1600. Shaks., A. Y. L., II. ii. 8. The roynish Clown, at whom so oft Your Grace was wont to laugh. Ibid. (1602), Ham., II. ii. 336. The Clowne shall make those laugh whose lungs are tickled a’ th’ sere.
1604. T. Wright, Passions, 322, in Fairholt, Costume (1860), 217. Sometimes I have seen Tarlton play the Clowne, and vse no other breeches, than such slops or slivings, as now many Gentlemen weare.
a. 1643. W. Cartwright, Commend. Verses Fletcher. Old-fashion’d wit, which walk’d from town to town In trunk-hose, which our fathers call’d the clown.
1822. Nares, Gloss., s.v., The fool was indeed the inmate of every opulent house, but the rural jester, or clown, seems to have been peculiar to the country families.
b. 1727. J. Thurmond, The Miser, (Characters), Harlequin’s servant, a clown.
1728. R. & J. Weaver, Perseus & Androm., Clown, the Squire’s man.
1775. Lond. Mag., Dec., 684/2. He [Harlequin] converts part of the paling of an alehouse-yard into a pillory, wherein having inclosed Pantaloon and the clown [etc.].
1780. T. Davies, Life Garrick, I. 36. He was a most diverting clown in all the pantomimes of Mr. Rich.
1840. Dickens, Old C. Shop, xxxix. The clown who ventured on such familiarities with that military man in boots.
1855. Times, 2 April, 5/5. Never did Clown and Pantaloon belabour each other more heartily.
4. attrib. and Comb., as clown part, etc. The possessive clown’s forms part of certain plant-names: clown’s all-heal, a name given by Gerarde to Stachys palustris (also, clown-heal, clown’s wound-wort); clown’s lungwort, (a) Verbascum Thapsus, (b) Lathræa squamaria; clown’s mustard, Iberis amara; clown’s spikenard, Inula Conyza; clown’s treacle, Allium sativum.
1597. Gerarde, Herbal, II. ccclxxiv. 85. Clounes Alheale, or the husbandman’s Woundwoort, hath long slender stalks.
a. 1678. Marvell, Poems, Damon the Mower, 275. With shepherd’s purse and clowns-all-heal The blood I stanch and wound I seal.
1861. Miss Pratt, Flower. Pl., I. 95. Iberis amara … sometimes called Clown’s Mustard.
1783. Ainsworth, Lat. Dict. (Morell), II. Bacchar, a sweet herb, called by some our lady’s gloves, by others, clown’s spikenard.
1825. Hone, Every-day Bk., I. 877. Clown’s woundwort, wake-robin, and … other simples.
