merry-andrew

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

“Persons who naïvely mistake me for a merry-andrew with an inflated pig’s bladder can never understand that I adore whichever tradition I am striving to follow,” he said in a 1980 interview.

From The New Yorker • Jul. 30, 2014

This last mentioned person had been bred with an apothecary, and sometimes travelled the country in the high capacity of a quack doctor, at others, in the more humble station of a merry-andrew.

From Lives of the Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences by Hayward, Arthur L.

One of the company added, "A merry-andrew, a buffoon."

From The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 by Ontario. Ministry of Education

And after a few efforts to better her condition she grew cautious, and hesitated discreetly before returning one of those ingenuous answers which, in the beginning, had made her the merry-andrew of the class.

From The Getting of Wisdom by Richardson, Henry Handel

—The merry-andrew was here at my side, and I deemed it most prudent to drop a few sous into his cap, and effect my escape.

From Travels through the South of France and the Interior of Provinces of Provence and Languedoc in the Years 1807 and 1808 by Pinkney, Lt-Col.