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