Word.ws English Dictionary

harlequinesque

harlequinesque adjective: like or befitting a harlequin; clownish.

Adjective

harlequinesque (comparative more harlequinesque, superlative most harlequinesque)

  1. Like or befitting a harlequin; clownish.
    • He was a powerful young fellow, with bewildered hair and beard, wearing his neck open; his blouse was stained with oil-colours in a harlequinesque disorder...1916, Richard Ashley Rice, Robert Louis Stevenson: How to Know Him
    • Sam Archer is the harlequinesque dancer who was trained in musical theater, while Richard Winsor is the taller, heavier-boned dancer who was trained in ballet.2007 March 11, Matthew Gurewitsch, “Admire the Footwork, but Mind the Hands”, in New York Times

Forms of harlequinesque

comparativemore harlequinesque
superlativemost harlequinesque

Origin of harlequinesque

From harlequin + -esque.

Questions about harlequinesque

What does harlequinesque mean?
Harlequinesque means like or befitting a harlequin; clownish.
What part of speech is harlequinesque?
Harlequinesque is an adjective.

Words near harlequinesque in the dictionary

  1. harlequin-type ichthyosis
  2. harlequinade
  3. harlequinades
  4. harlequined
  5. harlequinery
  6. harlequinesque
  7. harlequinic
  8. harlequining
  9. harlequinism
  10. harlequinisms
  11. harlequinize

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: harlequinesque (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Rho9998-harlequinesque.wav.

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