comedian

Etymology

comedy + -ian. From Middle French comédien, from comédie (“comedy”).

noun

1. An entertainer who performs in a humorous manner, especially by telling jokes.
2. (by extension) Any person who is humorous or amusing, either characteristically or on a particular occasion.
3. (dated) A person who performs in theatrical plays.
   Coordinate term: tragedian
   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. 1755, George Colman, The Connaisseur, volume 1, London: R. Baldwin, page 1
4. (obsolete) A writer of comedies.
   Coordinate term: tragedian
   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.