Definition of "lampoon" []

• A written attack ridiculing a person, group, or institution. See Synonyms at caricature. (noun)
• A light, good-humored satire. (noun)
• To ridicule or satirize in or as if in a lampoon. (verb-transitive)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Lucky for Littell he was writing, as it turns out, for an appreciative (French) audience; they seem aware, largely, of the fact that the novel has a right to present its horrors as horrible; its subtle arguments without convenient keys and its jokes quite bitter if the world they lampoon is inarguably cruel."
• "Thanks for those links :) Obviously I assumed they were 'lampooning' the sort of show I mentioned I'll use the word lampoon at any given opportunity...) it just seems a bit of a random one to choose!"
• "There was a bitter and personal quarrel and rivalry betwixt the author of this libel, a name which it richly deserves, and Lord President Stair; and the lampoon, which is written with much more malice than art, bears the following motto:"