Buffoon - bufon. The same - to samo?

buffoon
First, let's take the English buffoon.  What example could I give?  Imagine if the UK Prime Minister had a history of making himself look ridiculous in public.  Try to picture a man, who can make a suit look untidy, stuck mid way on a zip-wire, his fat gut bulging through the harness, his trouser legs pulled up above his socks.  As he sways impotently in the wind, he waves a small cheap union flag in each hand.  This unlikely image is the very epitome of buffoon.  A buffoon is a joke. A fool.  A ridiculous character.  Laughable.

The Polish word bufon looks similar and shares the same etymological routes, but is it a false friend?  Does it mean something different?

Like our own buffoon, the Polish bufon comes from the French bouffon for jester.  It is also a derogatory term, but the meaning in Polish seems to be a selfish, conceited person.  A bighead.  I'm sure that if we scour the ranks of world leaders, we might just find one or two that epitomize this meaning of bufon.

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