prank
1 Americannoun
verb (used with object)
verb (used without object)
verb
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(tr) to dress or decorate showily or gaudily
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(intr) to make an ostentatious display
noun
Usage
What is a prank call? A prank call or crank call is when a person calls someone up to make a joke or play a trick on them. Teenagers may make prank calls to random people while comedians may use them to dupe political figures. Though meant to be humorous and playful, they can have serious consequences.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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pranksimple
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prankssimple
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have prankedperfect
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has prankedperfect
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am prankingprogressive
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are prankingprogressive
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is prankingprogressive
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have been prankingperfect progressive
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has been prankingperfect progressive
Past
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prankedsimple
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had prankedperfect
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was prankingprogressive
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were prankingprogressive
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had been prankingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of prank1
First recorded in 1520–30; origin uncertain
Origin of prank2
1540–50; akin to Dutch pronken to show off, strut, pronk show, finery, Middle Low German prank pomp
Explanation
Pretending to be someone else on the phone or putting a whoopee cushion on someone's chair are two very old types of a prank, or practical joke, played at someone else's expense. There are many kinds of pranks in the world. If you called a friend and said you were the police, that would be a prank phone call. Some pranks can be mean and even dangerous, while others are silly. Some people prank their friends, while others prank people they dislike. Some people never outgrow the need to pull a good prank. A less common meaning of prank is to dress up in a showy or silly way.
Vocabulary lists containing prank
Tricky Terms for April Fool's Day
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Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus
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Comedy Lingo
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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.
See Examples For:
“What may seem like a harmless prank for social media is actually a crime,” the agency said in the post.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 23, 2026
When I began leaving messages for them, one survivor wondered if the phone call was a prank.
From Slate ● Jul. 7, 2026
But the prank continued and any attempts to free the duke of his plastic hat have always been quickly thwarted with the cone replaced within days.
From BBC ● Jun. 17, 2026
I worry Nike is playing a prank on them.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 11, 2026
Major Major was elsewhere, and the enlisted men in the other room had made him the butt of an inhuman prank.
From "Catch-22" by Joseph Heller
In fact, if we were on the eve of April Fools’ Day, not the Fourth of July, I’d guess that the few news stories about the order were pranks.
From Slate ● Jul. 1, 2026
Kemish said his team had identified several groups from across Nottingham and West Bridgford who harassed the public and shop workers, and that some saw their behaviour as "pranks".
From BBC ● May 7, 2026
The catty media site Gawker noted that corners of the internet like 4Chan could be expected to respond with heinous pranks, without realizing how vile the rhetoric of regular people was about to get.
From Salon ● Feb. 16, 2026
Years of insults and diss tracks and pranks and social media posts have followed, with small islands of peace floating by from time to time.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 10, 2026
During the long hot afternoons, pranks and talk died down as each one sat alone with his own thoughts.
From "The Hiding Place" by Corrie ten Boom
Kido says they’ve never been on the receiving end of weird or gross trash—or even pranked.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 1, 2026
How were so many otherwise reasonable people pranked into venturing to an empty Brooklyn Bridge Park in the bleak midwinter as 2025 ebbed to nothing, for nothing?
From Salon ● Jan. 21, 2026
One of them was Rita Skimehorn, the woman from Mascoutah, Illinois, who thought she was being pranked when Pizza Hut HR told her to pack her bags for the USSR.
From Slate ● Nov. 13, 2025
"It's like Indonesians have been pranked," Lucius Karus from Formappi, a non-profit parliamentary watchdog, told local media outlets.
From BBC ● Oct. 14, 2025
Maybe they hadn’t pranked him first thing in the morning like most days.
From "The Way to Rio Luna" by Zoraida Cordova
He and his best pal Chris Stark, who joined Radio 1 in 2012, were known for their real life, on-air bromance and for pranking each other.
From BBC ● Mar. 30, 2026
This further fouls up Didi’s holiday, though Cliff’s pranking of Conway may mark the moment when she falls in love.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 27, 2025
“My friend sent me a video, and at first I thought she was pranking me,” the 20-year-old from Nashville told Slate—and not just because the concept of an “A.I. actress” is already baffling enough.
From Slate ● Oct. 2, 2025
They did this by pranking the chimpanzees with fake snakes, then recording their responses.
From Salon ● Jan. 20, 2025
"You're pranking me," she says with eyes bright as headlights.
From "The Sky at Our Feet" by Nadia Hashimi
Definitions 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.
