Contextualizebeta

pratfall

noun

Etymology

From prat + fall.

  1. inherited from *fallą✻
  2. inherited from fealle — “trap, snare”
  3. inherited from feall
  4. inherited from fal
  5. inherited from *h₃elh₁-✻ — “to collapse, fall; to destroy”
  6. inherited from *fallaną✻ — “to fall”
  7. inherited from *fallan✻ — “to fall”
  8. inherited from feallan — “to fall, fail, decay, die, attack”
  9. inherited from fallen
  10. compounded as pratfall — “prat + fall”

Definitions

  1. A fall onto the buttocks.

  2. A humiliating mistake.

  3. A staged trip or fall, often for comedic purposes.

    • The motivational speaker started with a pratfall so he could speak about the importance of getting back up.
  4. ›+ 1 more definition

    1. To fall on to the buttocks.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for pratfall. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA