Meaning

noun a rude or vulgar fool

noun a person who amuses others by ridiculous behavior

verb act as or like a clown

originFrom earlier clowne, cloyne (“man of rustic or coarse manners, boor, peasant”); likely of North Germanic origin, akin to Icelandic klunni (“clumsy fellow, klutz”), Swedish kluns (“clumsy fellow”), all from Middle Low German klunz, from klunt (“pile, lump, something thick”); according to Pokorny, this could be related to a group of Germanic derivatives of Proto-Indo-European *gel- (“to ball up;…

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0