Farce: Significantly, the word 'farce' can be used as both a noun and a verb; most scholars agree that the word derives from the Old French farcir, meaning to stuff, particularly with materials foreign to the casing in a natural state. There are many conceptual permutations of this etymology, and though most are fairly intuitive, a precise meaning has been very difficult to produce; for instance, the word has been used to refer to activities as diverse as the embalming process and face-painting. The word also connotes a vague sense of aggression, pressure both physical and ideological. It may be important, particularly given the negative or illegitimate aesthetic valence of the genre, to recognize the domestic sphere invoked by the word farce; the word is still used today in culinary vocabularies (i.e. champignons farcis, meaning stuffed mushrooms). Farce is a very physical and mechanised form of performance, and it relies heavily for its effect on visual absurdity piled high atop visual absurdity, just to the point at which it seems the entire pile is about to come toppling down. For this reason, farce throughout the years has been linked to pantomime, vaudeville, and the far reaches of comedy both irrepressibly light-hearted and irredeemably despairing. Ionesco, for instance, has referred to many of his works as farces, and Beckett's drama might also be placed within this genealogy.

Samuel Johnson, in his Dictionary, cites an alternative French origin as farcer, to mock, though this has no counterpart in the Oxford English Dictionary. He defines the term specifically in reference to performance: "A dramatick representation written without regularity, and stuffed with wild and ludicrous conceits." In Johnson-speak, 'regularity' seems to mean formal consistency, perhaps in line with an idealized sense of classical composition; however, it also has the connotation of normal and conventional. Farce relies on inversion--the world upside-down or topsy-turvy--for the laughter it excites.

'Farce,' from The Bloomsbury Guide to Human Thought at xrefer.com