leitzan and mukion

Let's look at two Hebrew words for clown - לֵיצָן leitzan and מוּקְיוֹן mukion . Leitzan is the more common of the two, so we'll start by examining it. It first appears in Rabbinic Hebrew , meaning "scorner, scoffer, mocker, jester." It is parallel to the biblical לֵץ letz , which is both a verb "to scorn, scoff" and also a substantive noun meaning "scorner, scoffer." The word letz appears in the…