ridicule

verb

1. (transitive)To criticize or disapprove of someone or something through scornful jocularity; to make fun of.

   “His older sibling constantly ridiculed him with sarcastic remarks.”

noun

1. (countable, uncountable)Derision; mocking or humiliating words or behavior.

   “Safe from the Bar, the Pulpit, and the Throne, / Yet touch'd and sham'd by Ridicule alone.”

   “When he was young you'd not find him doing well in school, His mind would turn unto the waters. Always the focus of adolescent ridicule, He has no time for farmer's daughters. Alienated from the clique society, A lonely boy finds peace in fishing.”

2. (countable, uncountable)An object of sport or laughter; a laughing stock.

   “[Marlborough] was so miserably ignorant, that his deficiencies made him the ridicule of his contemporaries.”

   “To the people […] but a trifle, to the king but a ridicule.”

3. (countable, uncountable)The quality of being ridiculous; ridiculousness.

   “to see the ridicule of this monstrous practice”

   “More keenly alive perhaps than any of her sisters to the little ridicules that belonged to Mrs. Palmer's character, she yet saw how small was their importance, and that Mrs. Palmer was not only a better but a happier person than most of those with whom she was acquainted.”

4. (historical, regional)A small woman's handbag; a reticule.

   “[…] while paying her own compliments to Mrs. Bates, and appearing to attend to the good old lady’s replies, she saw her with a sort of anxious parade of mystery fold up a letter which she had apparently been reading aloud to Miss Fairfax, and return it into the purple and gold ridicule by her side, […]”

   “I hastily drew my empty hand from my Ridicule.”

   ““Tills be blowed!” said Mr. Claypole; “there’s more things besides tills to be emptied.” “What do you mean?” asked his companion. “Pockets, women’s ridicules, houses, mailcoaches, banks,” said Mr. Claypole, rising with the porter.”

adj

1. (obsolete)ridiculous

   “late 17th century, John Aubrey, Brief Lives This action […] became so ridicule.”