comedian

1. (by extension) Any person who is humorous or amusing, either characteristically or on a particular occasion.Synonyms: card, cutup, gagster, joker, wag, witbroadly

2. (dated) A person who performs in theatrical plays.Examples: "[…] the quick comedians Extemporally will stage us, and present Our Alexandrian revels;"; "1714, Susanna Centlivre, The Wonder, London: E. Curll and A. Bettesworth, Preface, I Don’t pretend to write a Preface, either to point out the Beauties, or to excuse the Errors, a judicious Reader may possibly discover in the following Scenes, but to give those excellent Comedians their Due, to whom, in some Measure the best Dramatick Writers are oblig’d."; "When a Comedian, celebrated for his excellence in the part of Shylock, first undertook that character, he made daily visits to the center of business, the ’Change, and the adjacent Coffee-houses; that by a frequent intercourse and conversation with “the unforeskinn’d race,” he might habituate himself to their air and deportment."Synonyms: actor, player, thespiandated

3. (obsolete) A writer of comedies.Examples: "This doth the Comedy handle ſo in our priuate and domeſtical matters, as with hearing it, we get as it were an experience, what is to be looked for of a nigardly Demea: of a crafty Danus: of a flattering Gnato: of a vaine glorious Thraſo: and not onely to know what effects are to be expected, but to know who be ſuch, by the ſignifying badge giuen them by the Comedian."; "Neither is it recorded that the writings of those old Comedians were supprest, though the acting of them were forbid;"; "1783, Hugh Blair, Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, London: Whitestone et al., Volume 3, Lecture 47, p. 377, […] the Dramatic Author, in whom the French glory most, and whom they justly place at the head of all their Comedians, is, the famous Moliere."obsolete