• enPR: prăngk, IPA: /pɹæŋk/

prank (plural pranks)

1. A practical joke or mischievous trick.

   He pulled a gruesome prank on his sister.

   • c. 1599–1602, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358 ↗, [Act III, scene iv]:

     His pranks have been too broad to bear with.

   • The harpies […] played their accustomed pranks.

2. (obsolete) An evil deed; a malicious trick, an act of cruel deception.
   • 1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], “Simples purging melancholy downeward”, in The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Printed by John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, OCLC 54573970 ↗, partition 2, section 4, member 2, subsection 2, page 311 ↗:

     Lilius Geraldus ſaith,that Hercules after all his mad prankes vpon his wife and children, was perfectly cured by a purge of Hellebor,which an Anticyrian adminiſtred vnto him.

• See also Thesaurus:joke

• French: farce, tour
• German: Streich, Schabernack
• Italian: burla, beffa, vigliaccata, scherzo meschino
• Portuguese: travessura, trote
• Russian: вы́ходка
• Spanish: travesura, broma, inocentada, jugarreta, chiquillada, gamberrada, jaimitada

prank (pranks, present participle pranking; past pranked, past participle pranked)

1. (transitive) To perform a practical joke on; to trick.
2. (transitive, slang) To call someone's phone and promptly hang up

   Hey man, prank me when you wanna get picked up.

   I don't have your number in my phone; can you prank me?

3. (transitive) To adorn in a showy manner; to dress or equip ostentatiously.

   • In sumptuous tire she joyed herself to prank.

   • 1748, James Thomson, The Castle of Indolence, B:II

     And there a Seaſon atween June and May,

     Half prankt with Spring, with Summer half imbrown'd,

     A liſtleſs Climate made, where, Sooth to ſay,

     No living Wight could work, ne cared even for Play.

   • 1880 Dante Gabriel Rosetti, For Spring, by Sandro Botticelli, lines 2–3

     Flora, wanton-eyed

     For birth, and with all flowrets prankt and pied:

4. (intransitive) To make ostentatious show.

   • White houses prank where once were huts.

• Spanish: embromar

prank

1. (obsolete) Full of gambols or tricks.