The Collaborative International Dictionary
Punchinello \Pun`chi*nel"lo\, n. [It. pulcinella, probably
originally a word of endearment, dim. of pulcina, pulcino, a
chicken, from L. pullicenus, pullus. See Pullet.]
A punch; a buffoon; originally, in a puppet show, a character
represented as fat, short, and humpbacked.
--Spectator.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
see Punch.
Wikipedia
Punchinello may refer to:
- Punchinello, an American satirical magazine
- Pulcinella, the Commedia character, and its English descendant, Punch
- The third main boss in the SNES video game Super Mario RPG
- The main character in Max Lucado's 1997 book, You Are Special and subsequent books about Lucado's fictional society of wooden people called the "Wemmicks"
- The Punchinello Crime Family and its leader, Don Angelo Punchinello, the main antagonists for the first couple of chapters of the video game Max Payne
- A clown marionette seen in "Grandpa's Magical Toys" (1988), a video in the Wee Sing Video Series (played by Joel Morello) and "Wee Singdom" (1996), a video in the Wee Sing Video Series (played by Thom Rivera replacing the 1988 departed Joel Morello for/from playing Punchinello the Clown)
- Zemeros flegyas Punchinello species of butterfly of South Asia
Punchinello was a short-lived American satirical magazine. Inspired by the English publication Punch, it ran in weekly editions from 2 April 1870 to 24 December 1870.
Usage examples of "punchinello".
And yes, there were certainly movie scenes in the offices looking out over the mines, the noise, the smoke, but this character Bagby, they remembered a minor character in the movie, kind of a straight man, a foil, short, fat, foul mouthed, a kind of a Punchinello, Oscar, real opera buffa, Bagby in one or two crude dimensions maybe, a stock character, a comic device.
Il Nanno was Punchinello, his Neapolitan servant, Il Dottore his travelling physician.
Kings may play Vagabonds in masques, you are now a merchant banker named Signore Punchinello.
Things haltingly stirred to life, a ballerina with empty eye sockets elevating itself en pointe, a sawn-off oem-media dell'arte Punchinello grinning with malice and shaking a bell-cuffed fist at unseen enemies.