the.com/antic
Mischief with a theater degree — behavior performed as much as committed.
means A silly, exaggerated act done for show — mischief performed with an audience in mind.
from From Italian 'antico' (ancient), via the grotesque figures and ornamental styles found in excavated Roman ruins — contorted, fantastical human and animal shapes carved into old walls. Renaissance Europeans called these bizarre decorative forms 'antics,' and the word drifted from describing weird grotesque art to describing weird grotesque behavior: the clowning, posturing performance of someone acting the fool.
- original meaning
- once meant grotesque, from antique Roman wall paintings
- renaissance twist
- those paintings looked bizarre, so antic meant weirdly playful
- plural habit
- almost always shows up as antics, never solo
- shakespeare used it
- hamlet vows to put an antic disposition on