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- make a laughingstock of
make a laughingstock of
make a laughingstock of (oneself or something)
and make (oneself or something) a laughingstockto make oneself a source of ridicule or laughter; to do something that invites ridicule. Laura made herself a laughingstock by arriving at the fast-food restaurant in full evening dress. The board of directors made the company a laughingstock by hiring an ex-convict as president.
make a laughingstock of
Lay open to ridicule, as in They made a laughingstock of the chairman by inviting him to the wrong meeting-place, or She felt she was making a laughingstock of herself, always wearing the wrong clothes for the occasion . The noun laughingstock replaced the earlier mockingstock and sportingstock, now obsolete. The idiom was first recorded in 1667.
Common Names:
Name | Gender | Pronounced | Usage |
Toribio | | to-REE-byo | Spanish |
Crofton | | KRAWF-tən | English (Rare) |
Calypso | | kə-LIP-so (English) | Greek Mythology (Latinized) |
Yuliana | | - | Russian, Bulgarian, Indonesian |
Dick (1) | | DIK | English |
Eugenio | | e-oo-JE-nyo (Italian), e-oo-KHE-nyo (Spanish) | Italian, Spanish |