Etymologically
Log in

prank

This is the current revision of this entry, as edited by bogdan on 24 October 2026 at 18:41. This address is a permanent link to this version.
Changes in this edit History

Pronunciation

  • UK: /pɹæŋk/[1]
  • US: /pɹeɪ̯ŋk/[1]

prank1 to dress up, show off

Etymology

The verb meaning to dress up or show off is inherited from Middle English pranken (“to show off”),[2][3][4] probably borrowed from Middle Dutch pronken (“to show off, strut”),[5][2][4][3] from pronk (“show, display”),[3][4] and perhaps also from Middle Low German prunken (“to make a show or display”), from prank (“pomp, display”).[3][4][6] It is related to German prunken (“to show off”) and prangen (“to make a show”).[4][7][8] The OED calls the origin uncertain: the Middle Dutch verb meant to boast or to sulk, and only in early modern Dutch also to decorate and to show off, and all these Dutch and German words are themselves of uncertain origin.[8] The OED files the oldest record, from about 1450, under a separate verb meaning to prance or caper, which it thinks was perhaps originally the same word, and perhaps influenced by prance.[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

To show off, to act in an ostentatious way: about 1450, in the poem Earth upon Earth, of earth that prykys and prankys on a palfreye.[2][8][4]

Semantic evolution

The transitive sense, to dress or deck someone in a bright or showy way, is recorded from 1546, in John Bale;[8][4][9] from 1567 the verb was also used of making a show without an object, a use now rare.[8] Sylvester's translation of Du Bartas (1605) has flowers adorning a place,[8] and Shakespeare used the verb figuratively in Coriolanus for giving a misleading appearance to something.[8] A short-lived adjective prank, smartly or showily dressed, is recorded from 1575 to 1615.[8] In English dialect the verb, also spelled pronk in Yorkshire and Lancashire, still meant to decorate or deck out in the 19th century, from Scotland to Cornwall.[10] Klein and Weekley compare the similar verb prink.[7][11]

Timeline

  • c. 1450 – to show off, act ostentatiously.[2][4]
  • 1546 – to dress or deck showily.[8][4]
  • 1567 – to make an ostentatious display (now rare).[8]
  • 1575 – adjective prank, showily dressed (to 1615).[8]
  • 1605 – of flowers, to adorn or brighten.[8]

Modern meaning

Verb

  1. To dress or decorate in a bright or showy way, often with out or up: The bride's mother had pranked herself out in yellow silk.
  2. To adorn or deck, as flowers do a meadow.
  3. (rare) To make an ostentatious show.

prank2 trick, practical joke

Etymology

The noun meaning a trick is of unknown origin.[8][3][12][13][6][14][15] Etymonline and Partridge think it perhaps related to the verb meaning to show off or adorn,[9][16] but the OED notes that a link with that verb, or with an obsolete noun meaning a pleat, is sometimes suggested, and finds no clear connection of meaning in either case.[8] Weekley proposed an alteration of the dialect word prat (“trick”), from Old English prætt (“craft, wile, trick”), which he notes dies out except in Scotland once the newer word appears; or, he suggested, it took its sense from the verb, as trick has both meanings.[11][17]

Earliest recorded meaning

A malicious trick or wicked deed: before 1529, in Skelton's poem Against the Scots.[8][4][5] The Oxford Dictionary of English likewise notes that the early 16th-century word denoted a wicked deed,[12] and the OED adds that it sometimes rendered Latin words for a crime or evil act.[8]

Semantic evolution

A prank was once much more serious than now: the Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins cites the 17th-century commentator John Trapp calling a person's murder of a brother and sister lewd pranks.[15] From 1555 it could also be a conjuring trick, a sense obsolete by 1840,[8][6] and by 1576 a practical joke or lark, the sense that took over.[8][6] Johnson (1755) still gave both "a ludicrous trick" and "a wicked act".[18][9] From 1692 the word was used of the seemingly capricious behaviour of things and the playful antics of animals.[8] The verb, to play a trick or joke, is recorded from 1530, in Palsgrave,[8][9] and the transitive use, to play a prank on someone, from 1973.[8] Etymonline records prinkum-prankum, a prank or trick, from the 1590s.[9] In Scotland, Ireland and Yorkshire the verb also meant to play tricks on someone.[10]

Timeline

  • before 1529 – a malicious trick, a wicked deed.[8][4]
  • 1530 – verb, to play a trick.[8]
  • 1555 – a conjuring trick (obsolete by 1840).[8]
  • 1576 – a practical joke, a lark.[8]
  • 1692 – a playful antic of an animal or a capricious action of a thing.[8]
  • 1973 – verb, to play a prank on someone.[8]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. A mischievous trick or practical joke: The students' prank left the headmaster's car on the roof.
  2. (obsolete) A malicious or wicked act.
  3. (archaic) A conjuring trick.

Verb

  1. To play a prank on someone.
  2. To play pranks; to frolic.

Word family

  • prankish
  • prankster
  • prink
  • prance

Usage notes

An obsolete prank, a pleat or fold, is recorded in 1440, with a verb meaning to pleat (before 1529 to 1590); the OED gives it no known origin and keeps it apart from both words above.[8][5][6]

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
  3. ^ a b c d e The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  5. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  6. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  7. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  9. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  10. ^ a b Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
  11. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  12. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  13. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  14. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  15. ^ a b Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  16. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
  17. ^ Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
  18. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.