Meaning
In comedy, the performer who stays serious and unflappable, asking questions and feeding lines so that a partner can get the laughs; by extension, anyone whose job is to remain the sensible, credible one while somebody else clowns. Used both of real double acts and of informal pairings at work or in families. Neutral to affectionate in show-business contexts, but applied to a colleague it can imply they are being denied the spotlight. Regional use: General English (American vaudeville origin).
Origin
'Straight' had meant 'serious rather than comic' in theatrical use by 1895, and 'straight man' itself is recorded as American vaudeville slang by 1906 (Etymonline). The role is older than the word: in the late-19th-century music hall and vaudeville double act the straight man, also called the feed, began simply by repeating the comic's lines so noisy audiences could hear them, and only later evolved into the partner who sets up the punchlines (Wikipedia, 'Double act'). 'Straight' here carries its ordinary sense of 'conventional, not joking', the same current that gave 'play it straight' in the same era. The best-documented picture is therefore an American label of the 1890s-1900s for a stage function that already existed on both sides of the Atlantic.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- act as straight man
- be the straight man to someone's comic
- play the straight man
- straight woman
Usage Examples
- For fifteen years she was the perfect straight man, nodding patiently while her co-host spun ever more absurd theories.
- He plays the straight man in the family, so every Thanksgiving argument somehow ends up addressed to him.
- A good farce needs a straight man whose calm makes everyone else's panic twice as funny.