laughing stock
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
Someone or something ridiculed or mocked by others
Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt
một người hoặc thứ gì bị chế giễu hoặc nhạo báng
Machine-translated — suggest a fix
Literally: object of laughter
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
Flashman has made us the laughing stock of football.
David Icke insists he made no such claim, and blames the media for turning him into a laughing - stock.
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “laughing stock” mean?
Someone or something ridiculed or mocked by others Literally: object of laughter
Is “laughing stock” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.