Definition of "ridicule"

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

1738, Alexander Pope, Epilogue to the Satires: Dialogue II

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

1857, Henry Thomas Buckle, History of Civilization in England

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

1563 March 30, John Foxe, Actes and Monuments of These Latter and Perillous Dayes, […], London: […] Iohn Day, […]

to see the ridicule of this monstrous practice

1710 April 1 (Gregorian calendar), [Joseph Addison; Richard Steele et al.], “TUESDAY, March 21, 1709–1710”, in The Spectator, number 18; republished in Alexander Chalmers, editor, The Spectator; a New Edition, […], volume I, New York, N.Y.: D[aniel] Appleton & Company, 1853

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.

1838 (date written), L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter VI, in Lady Anne Granard; or, Keeping up Appearances. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […], published 1842, page 65

This action […] became so ridicule.

late 17th century, John Aubrey, Brief Lives

[…] 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, […]

1815 December (indicated as 1816), [Jane Austen], chapter XVI, in Emma: […], volume III, London: […] [Charles Roworth and James Moyes] for John Murray, pages 295–296

I hastily drew my empty hand from my Ridicule.

c. 1825, Frances Burney, Journals and Letters, Penguin, published 2001, page 455

“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.

1838, Boz [pseudonym; Charles Dickens], “An Old Acquaintance of Oliver’s, Exhibiting Decided Marks of Genius, Becomes a Public Character in the Metropolis”, in Oliver Twist; or, The Parish Boy’s Progress. […], volume III, London: Richard Bentley, […], page 103