straight man

Definitions

1. 1

   A member (of any gender) of a team of comic performers who plays a supporting role by…

   A member (of any gender) of a team of comic performers who plays a supporting role by helping to set up jokes and punch lines through engaging in dialog with another comedian playing a more eccentric or otherwise more interesting character; a foil who plays such a role in theatrical comedy.

   • For many years Bud Abbott served brilliantly as Lou Costello's deadpan straight man.
   • Recently he had successfully concluded a case featuring a poet who wore only latex, lived on liquorice allsorts and worshipped a horse she believed to be the reincarnation of Radclyffe Hall. And she was the straight man.
   • She was the straight man, he was the comedian, and their audience was “standing room only” when they stepped up to the microphone.
2. 2

   Used other than figuratively or idiomatically

   Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see straight, man; for example, a heterosexual man.

   • The committee consisted of two lesbians and a straight man.

The neighborhood