as originally a droll petty show or entertainment, exhibited by charlatans, and their buffoons, in the open street, in order to gather the crowd together. The word is French, and signifies, literally, forced meat or stuffing. It was applied on this occasion on account of the variety of jests, gibes, and tricks, with which the entertainment was interlarded. Some authors derive the word farce from the Latin facieta; others from the Celtic farce, mockery; and others from the Latin farcire, to stuff.

Modern dramatists have reformed the wildness of the primitive farces, and brought them to the taste and manner of comedy. The difference between the two on our stage is, that comedy keeps to nature and probability; whereas farce disallows all laws, or rather upon occasion sets them aside. Its end is purely to excite mirth; and it sticks at nothing which may contribute thereto, however wild and extravagant. Hence the dialogue is usually low, the persons of inferior rank, the fable or action trivial or ridiculous, and nature and truth everywhere heightened and exaggerated, to afford the more palpable ridicule. See Drama.