pierrot

name

1. A character from French pantomime; a buffoon in a loose white outfit; a popular choice for a masquerade costume.

   “I'll win them by politeness, and... and... show them that I've nothing to do with that Aesop, that buffoon, that Pierrot, and have merely been taken in over this affair, just as they have.”

   “And he was attending that fancy-dress ball, mark you--not, like every other well-bred Englishman, as a Pierrot, but as Mephistopheles […] "He said that the costume of Pierrot, while pleasing to the eye, lacked the authority of the Mephistopheles costume."”

   “The rest of the family then invades the studio, three boys dressed as Pierrots and three girls dressed as Pierrettes.”

noun

1. (alt-of, alternative)Alternative form of Pierrot.

   “Then came the very young, in the “Ballabile des Enfants” from “Harlequinade,” a colorful, confectionary swirl of polichinelles, pierrots and scaramouches, set to Riccardo Drigo.”

2. Any of various lycaenid butterflies of the genera Tarucus and Castalia, notable for white contrasting with brown or black on the underwings.
3. (historical)An 18th-century women's low-cut basque with sleeves.