Punch-and-Judy show

[ puhnch-uhn-joo-dee ]

noun

1. a puppet show having a conventional plot consisting chiefly of slapstick humor and the tragicomic misadventures of the grotesque, hook-nosed, humpback buffoon Punch and his wife Judy.

Word History and Origins

Origin of Punch-and-Judy show¹

First recorded in 1875–80

Example Sentences

Liebling had stopped to watch a Punch-and-Judy show on the beach—thanks to the violence of which, he noted, onlooking children “howled so hard with laughter that mummies and nannies had to drag half of them away to public lavatories.”

From The New Yorker

But isn’t there also a side effect, an off-label one if you will, of making the audience giggle along at this postmodern Punch-and-Judy show?

From Slate

Mr. Elias said he played a Punch-and-Judy show with Anne when in 1938 he saw her for the last time before the Nazis closed in and they had to go into hiding.

From Washington Post

Altogether the scene was more like a Punch-and-Judy show, than any part of the serious business of life.

From Project Gutenberg

She looked at him gravely while he rapidly described to her a pink pinafore she used to wear in England eight years ago, and a Punch-and-Judy show, stage-managed by a Fr�ulein Something or other, and a dimple just like her mother's that she then possessed.

From Project Gutenberg

Related Words

• puppetry