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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

zany.

Unusual and awkward in a funny, comical manner; outlandish; clownish.

4 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

adj/ˈzeɪni/
  1. Unusual and awkward in a funny, comical manner; outlandish; clownish.

  2. Ludicrously or incongruously comical.

Where this word comes from

From Middle French zani, zanni, from Italian zanni (“a kind of masked clown character”), from Zanni, a Venetian form of Giovanni. Doublet of Zanni, John, and Giovanni.

noun/ˈzeɪni/
  1. A fool or clown, especially one whose business on the stage is to imitate foolishly the actions of the principal clown.

    archaic
Where this word comes from

From Middle French zani, zanni, from Italian zanni (“a kind of masked clown character”), from Zanni, a Venetian form of Giovanni. Doublet of Zanni, John, and Giovanni.

verb/ˈzeɪni/
  1. To mimic foolishly.

    obsolete
Where this word comes from

From Middle French zani, zanni, from Italian zanni (“a kind of masked clown character”), from Zanni, a Venetian form of Giovanni. Doublet of Zanni, John, and Giovanni.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.