prank
1 Americannoun
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pranks
plural
verb (used with object)
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pranks,
present (3rd person singular)
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pranked,
past participle, past
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pranking
present participle
verb (used without object)
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pranks,
present (3rd person singular)
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pranked,
past participle, past
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pranking
present participle
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:
Tributes have been paid to Michael Locke, star of MTV stunt and prank series Dirty Sanchez, who has died aged 47.
From BBC ● Nov. 6, 2026
I began this book in 2014 and I think 2015 was when I really began writing that whole story line with Irma and Dahlia and the prank.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 28, 2026
In the story’s climax, a frightened Ichabod encounters the terrible spirit on the way home from a party—or is it Brom, playing an elaborate prank?
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 28, 2026
On her character’s wedding day, Colman traipses into the church like it’s a prank, then nervously straightens up as she realizes this ceremony is serious.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 22, 2026
“Something must have happened during the night. It could have been a prank, but it’d be next to impossible to move that shark.”
From "The Line Tender" by Kate Allen
Playing jokes and pranks, it needs to be amusing and not belittling, obviously.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 6, 2026
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
But Riley has put in so much work of his own wowing us with pointed pranks that he’s earned the right to deliver an earnest plea.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 21, 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
There were so many other things to be scared of, like Freddy and Teddy’s pranks, or Mr. Garner’s angry fits, or the possibility that he’d never find his sister.
From "The Way to Rio Luna" by Zoraida Cordova
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
"These are not the shots of a number 11," added Botham, as if he was being pranked by the whole of Australia as payback for his own Ashes exploits.
From BBC ● Nov. 18, 2025
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
But when someone asks you for a bullfighting ring in an American public school, you have to know you’re being pranked.
From "Schooled" by Gordon Korman
In one scene it lingers for what struck me as an inexplicably, even discomfitingly long time on the handsome face of a young sociopath pranking a pair of little kids with small stones.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 4, 2026
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
“Yeah, and we were up here a really long time! What’s the point of pranking someone if the prank’s on you as much as on him?”
From "Schooled" by Gordon Korman
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
