Meaning of Harlequin | Babel Free

Definitions

1. The best-known of the zanni or comic servant characters from the Italian commedia dell'arte, associated with the city of Bergamo.
2. A pantomime fool, typically dressed in colorful checkered clothes, used as a stock character in commedia dell'arte and other genres.
   countable, uncountable
3. A type of eyeglass frame design inspired by Venetian Harlequin masks, more commonly known as cat-eye.
4. A greenish-chartreuse color.
   countable, uncountable
5. A harlequin duck.
   countable, informal, uncountable
6. Any of various riodinid butterflies of the genera Taxila and Praetaxila.
   countable, uncountable

Equivalents

Examples

“[…] were certainly the worst and dullest company into which an audience was ever introduced; and (which was a secret known to few) were actually intended so to be, in order⟳ to contrast the comic part of the entertainment, and to display the tricks of harlequin to the better advantage.”

“Motives are like⟳ harlequins—there is always a second dress beneath their first.”

CEFR level