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
The Nickel Boys
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Eragon
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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.
The optimism that followed the Celtics upset is erased by another season-ending pratfall.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 11, 2026
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
Crosby and Bryan Rust scored for the Penguins, who had their run of 16 consecutive playoff appearances end last spring thanks in part to a late-season pratfall against the Blackhawks.
From Seattle Times ● Oct. 10, 2023
He fights kraken and amphibious dinosaurs gracefully; he flings himself onto and off of helicopters with gleeful gusto; he’s willing to take a pratfall and let his stunts be a punchline too.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 4, 2023
“Life becomes one big pratfall, Montag; everything bang; boff, and wow!”
From "Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury
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.
