prat·fall

(prăt′fôl′)

1. A fall on the buttocks.

2. A humiliating error, failure, or defeat: "His characters not only survive their snarled problems and pratfalls but learn from their experiences" (Joyce Carol Oates).

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

pratfall

(ˈprætˌfɔːl)

slang US and Canadian a fall upon one's buttocks

[C20: from C16 prat buttocks (of unknown origin) + fall]

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

prat•fall

(ˈprætˌfɔl)

n.

1. a fall on the buttocks, often regarded as comical or humiliating.

2. a humiliating blunder or defeat.

[1935–40]

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Noun	1.	pratfall - a fall onto your buttocks fall, tumble, spill - a sudden drop from an upright position; "he had a nasty spill on the ice"
	2.	pratfall - an embarrassing mistake blooper, blunder, boner, boo-boo, botch, bungle, flub, foul-up, fuckup, bloomer error, fault, mistake - a wrong action attributable to bad judgment or ignorance or inattention; "he made a bad mistake"; "she was quick to point out my errors"; "I could understand his English in spite of his grammatical faults" bobble - the momentary juggling of a batted or thrown baseball; "the second baseman made a bobble but still had time to throw the runner out" snafu - an acronym often used by soldiers in World War II: situation normal all fucked up spectacle - a blunder that makes you look ridiculous; used in the phrase `make a spectacle of' yourself bull - a serious and ludicrous blunder; "he made a bad bull of the assignment" fumble, muff - (sports) dropping the ball fluff - a blunder (especially an actor's forgetting the lines) faux pas, gaffe, slip, solecism, gaucherie - a socially awkward or tactless act howler - a glaring blunder clanger - a conspicuous mistake whose effects seem to reverberate; "he dropped a clanger" misstep, trip-up, stumble, trip - an unintentional but embarrassing blunder; "he recited the whole poem without a single trip"; "he arranged his robes to avoid a trip-up later"; "confusion caused his unfortunate misstep"

Translations

pratfall

[ˈprætfɔːl] N (esp US) → culada f, caída f de culo (fig) (= blunder) → metedura f de pata

Collins Spanish Dictionary - Complete and Unabridged 8th Edition 2005 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1971, 1988 © HarperCollins Publishers 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2005

pratfall

[ˈprætfɔːl] n (mainly US) to take a pratfall (= make a mistake) → trébucher

Collins English/French Electronic Resource. © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

pratfall

n (esp US inf) → Sturz auf den Hintern (inf); (fig) → Bauchlandung f (fig); to take a pratfall (also fig) → auf den Hintern fallen

Collins German Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged 7th Edition 2005. © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1980 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1997, 1999, 2004, 2005, 2007

Mentioned in

References in periodicals archive

And as soon as I did that pratfall and jumped up, it was like, 'Oh, I love this guy!

Say what?

Meantime, K Watts, of Warrington, draws our attention to the "eeny-meeny miny-mo" of political reporting: How, if Gordon Brown is doing well this week for leading Labour, then he must be taking a pratfall next - and vice versa with David Cameron and his fortunes in charge of the Tories.

Letter: Expert trend

(Keaton's nickname, "Buster," was slang for an artfull pratfall.) As h e once observed, "Tragedy is a close-up, and comedy a long shot."

THE THEATER AND CINEMA OF BUSTER KEATON

Although setting up a public demonstration can be a set-up for a PR pratfall, even apparently negative incidents can turn into positive publicity.

PR bloopers

There are plastic surgery jokes, uninspired "comedy" swearing, vomiting, a pratfall into a pond and Don is regularly punched.

Weddy for a Big mistake; Films

Early scenes of three naked male ghosts descending on a small village to escort an aged peasant lady, Hwang Bok-ryae (Kang Buja in a feisty encore of her stage role), to the underworld are strictly local in their pratfall humor.

Ogu: a Hilarious Mourning

Cunliffe explains dismissively that these trippyhippies are merely pratfall prancers, who have no real knowledge or connection to Britain's ancient belief system.

non-fiction; books

Then, with a slight shift of the head and attitude, he becomes an angel balanced on steel pins or an off-kilter Charlie Chaplin precariously waiting for the inevitable pratfall.

25 to Watch (2)

Script and performances have a slightly loopy, laid-back quality that's quite endearing, and the comic tone is sustained without declining into pratfall farce.

GANGSTER

It is content to be a history of some of the intellectual traditions that lead up to that critique, a history that self-consciously stages itself as "precritical." As such, it unrepentantly repeats the pratfall of Icarus, flying high over its historical terrain only to rediscover the obvious or, worse, the uncritical truism.

Downcast Eyes: The Denigration of Vision in Twentieth-Century French Thought

I'd hope my work has a melancholic, dour humour, questioning their seriousness and intention, but always one step away from a toilet gag or slapstick pratfall.

I'm kind of calling it a love letter back home

Now, even as a kid I don't ever remember laughing at Wisdom's pratfall slapstick or his ill-fitting suit.

Television: Nicely modest - that's Norman