pratfall
Americannoun
-
a fall in which one lands on the buttocks, often regarded as comical or humiliating.
-
a humiliating blunder or defeat.
noun
Etymology
Origin of pratfall
Explanation
A pratfall is a mistake that is particularly embarrassing, like going to a job interview with stains on your shirt. It can also be a silly goof done on purpose to make people laugh, like slipping on a banana peel. A pratfall originally referred to a fall on your butt, which was often done by comic actors for laughs. From there, it came to mean all sorts of unplanned screw-ups. A restaurant caught serving horsemeat has committed a pratfall. A politician’s inappropriate joke is a verbal pratfall. A football player who runs the wrong way and scores for the other team has done a pratfall. Oops!
Vocabulary lists containing pratfall
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
There’s a term for this: the pratfall effect, named for a 1966 psychological experiment which found that highly accomplished people become more appealing to others when they make minor screwups.
From Slate ● Sep. 27, 2026
But Roberts also looked brilliant, as his pratfall injected some necessary lightness into the darkening team mood.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 31, 2025
He went on to suggest an improvement to one of Ms. Thompson’s lines and add a little pratfall at the end, and the set brightened with laughter.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 9, 2025
This might be an exorcism of the time she broke her neck while doing a pratfall as Cinderella in the 2002 revival of “Into the Woods.”
From New York Times ● May 19, 2024
As I was telling you, they had just lifted me from the floor, my performance and subsequent pratfall the sources of a great feeling of camaraderie.
From "A Confederacy of Dunces" by John Kennedy Toole
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
