straight man

English

Pronunciation

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

Noun

straight man (plural straight men)

1. (idiomatic) A member (of any gender) of a team of comic performers who plays a supporting role by helping to set up jokes and punch lines through engaging in dialog with another comedian playing a more eccentric or otherwise more interesting character; a foil who plays such a role in theatrical comedy.

   Synonyms: setup man, stooge, second banana

   For many years Bud Abbott served brilliantly as Lou Costello's deadpan straight man.

   • 2010, Caroline Graham, A Ghost in the Machine, Hachette UK, →ISBN:

     Recently he had successfully concluded a case featuring a poet who wore only latex, lived on liquorice allsorts and worshipped a horse she believed to be the reincarnation of Radclyffe Hall. And she was the straight man.

   • 1982 April, Pam Hait, “Sandra Day O’Connor: Warm, Witty and Wise”, in The Ladies' Home Journal, volume 99, page 46:

     She was the straight man, he was the comedian, and their audience was “standing room only” when they stepped up to the microphone.

2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see straight,‎ man; for example, a heterosexual man.

   the committee consisted of two lesbians and a straight man

Translations

supporting comic

• Czech: nahrávač m
• Finnish: tavallinen mies
• French: clown blanc (fr) m
• German: Stichwortgeber (de) m, Stichwortgeberin (de) f
• Hungarian: hétköznapi embert/figurát játszó/alakító komikus
• Italian: spalla (it) f
• Japanese: ツッコミ (ja) (tsukkomi)
• Portuguese: escada (pt)
• Russian: бе́лый кло́ун m (bélyj klóun, literally “white clown”)
• Turkish: komedyen yardakçısı, şamaroğlanı

See also

• deadpan
• feed (noun)
• funnyman
• second banana
• top banana