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From Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors to Monty Python and the Holy Grail, many of us are familiar with farce in its dramatic sense. However, when farce first appeared in English, it had to do with cookery, not comedy. In the 14th century, English adopted farce from Middle French with its original meaning of "forcemeat"—that is, a highly seasoned, minced meat or fish often served as a stuffing. In the 16th century, English imported the word again, this time to refer to a kind of knockabout comedy already popular in France. French farce had its origins in the 13th-century practice of "stuffing" Latin church texts with explanatory phrases. By the 15th century, a similar practice of inserting unscripted buffoonery into religious plays had arisen. Such farces—which included clowning, acrobatics, reversal of social roles, and indecency—soon developed into a distinct dramatic genre and spread rapidly in various forms throughout Europe.
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Examples of farce in a Sentence
Wesley Morris, New York Times, 12 Apr. 2024
Blending flares of imaginative theatricality, surreal farce, and deep tenderness, this beautiful rollercoaster ride reveals timeless truths of love, family, and forgiveness.
—Dave Quinn, Peoplemag, 7 Mar. 2024
Indeed, Putin is set to secure a new presidential mandate in a farce of an election next month where any meaningful challenger has been disqualified.
—Ishaan Tharoor, Washington Post, 19 Feb. 2024
This ultra-obvious Democratic farce was intended to misuse a constitutional clause saying that those who were evicted could also be prohibited from running again and that assumed congressional literacy.
—Jay Ambrose, The Mercury News, 28 Mar. 2024
The farce works because, as Everett’s work has often shown, race itself is something of a farce.
—Lauren Michele Jackson, The New Yorker, 26 Mar. 2024
As Sir Arnold Robinson and Sir Humphrey Appleby of that classic British political farce understood, this is all about theater.
—Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times, 14 Mar. 2024
Cotta has a face fit for farce, with puzzled, wide eyes that Abrantes takes great pleasure in pulling the wool over.
—J. Kim Murphy, Variety, 28 Feb. 2024
Constellation’s roots in farce serve the company well, and the musical eventually settles into the right over-the-top rhythm; Act 2 is a riot.
—Missy Frederick, Washington Post, 22 Feb. 2024
Evan Grant, Dallas News, 28 Oct. 2020
As the season progresses, though, the pathos largely gives way to farce.
—Kristen Baldwin, EW.com, 23 Aug. 2021
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'farce.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
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“Farce.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/farce. Accessed 23 Apr. 2024.
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