clown vs joke

clown

verb
  • To act in a silly or playful fashion. 

  • To ridicule. 

noun
  • A person who acts in a silly fashion. 

  • A slapstick performance artist often associated with a circus and usually characterized by bright, oversized clothing, a red nose, face paint, and a brightly colored wig. 

  • A clownfish. 

  • A stupid or badly-behaved person. 

joke

verb
  • To dupe in a friendly manner for amusement; to mess with, play with. 

  • To do or say something for amusement rather than seriously. 

noun
  • An amusing story. 

  • The root cause or main issue, especially an unexpected one 

  • A laughably worthless thing or person; a sham. 

  • Something that is far easier or far less challenging than expected. 

  • Something said or done for amusement, not in seriousness. 

How often have the words clown and joke occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )