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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
pratfall
noun
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ And I have a spinal problem from taking pratfalls for 50 years.
▪ Even if she had the most plausible answers, there still would be folks wishing Clinton would continue to take political pratfalls.
▪ To his credit, Marshall has not taken any pratfalls, even though his balance at times has been shaky.
▪ You could have knocked us over with a feather when we saw her doing Lucystyle pratfalls and found ourselves laughing.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
pratfall

1939, from prat "buttock" + fall (n.). "Chiefly N. Amer. slang" [OED]. As a verb from 1940.

Wiktionary
pratfall

n. 1 A fall onto the buttocks. 2 A humiliating mistake. 3 A staged trip or fall, often for comedic purposes. vb. To fall on to the buttocks.

Usage examples of "pratfall".

DeLillo has no time for anarchic pratfalls, Aristophanic gambits, non sequiturs.

Tranh, a middle-aged, moonfaced man whose potbelly did not hamper in the slightest his energetic tumbling and pratfalls.

We gained two new acrobats, Kim and Kai, pretty Korean sisters aged seven and ten respectivelyorphans trained by another circusand Tranh, a middle-aged, moonfaced man whose potbelly did not hamper in the slightest his energetic tumbling and pratfalls.

Il Zoppo was down there, attempting celebrative back flips that were more like lanky pratfalls, and also the Madonna of the Organs and Count Agnello Ziani-Ziani Orseolo and all his bizarre retinue, the Count tipping back his mask and laughing the fierce strident laugh of the Venetian Lion-Planter, Pantalone the Magnificent.

And of course there was no sensation of hitting anything—my suit simply vanished as it went through the larger field—with the result that, because some part of me had been braced for impact, had been flinching, wincing, bracing myself, it was like reaching for that non-existent top step, and I did a comical cakewalk as if the floor was coated with banana peels and came that close to a pratfall any silent film comedian would have envied.

And of course there was no sensation of hitting anythingmy suit simply vanished as it went through the larger fieldwith the result that, because some part of me had been braced for impact, had been flinching, wincing, bracing myself, it was like reaching for that non-existent top step, and I did a comical cakewalk as if the floor was coated with banana peels and came that close to a pratfall any silent film comedian would have envied.

The Three Stooges couldn’t have put on a clumsier act than that pratfall of theirs.

She had developed a sort of clownish, pratfalling reputation, somehow.

But this lot, rooting and pratfalling around all day, still found such tired old cliches a perfect riot every time.

The withered clown came out, dropped a batch of knives and forks in his best Harpo Marx style, took a few gentle pratfalls while he pretended to be chasing Schnoozle, and wound up his five-minute stint with an Emmett Kelly routine built around a broom and a spotlight of diminishing proportions.

He watched Stogie parade around the ring, warming himself by an invisible fire, allowing Schnoozle to startle him into a pair of pratfalls, and finally sweeping the spotlight into a smaller and smaller circle until it vanished.

He's the guy scampering around behind, mugging and doing pratfalls, giving the speaker donkey ears, while the professor—or the culture—gives its earnest speech.

In the past, I prided myself on being the only member of the family who hadn't had therapy—I did not count a discussion of my pratfalls as therapy—and had tortured my sister while she was under Dr.

She had laughed at my jokes in high school, and after our few sessions regarding my pratfalls, she had said to my mother, in my presence, that coming from the family I came from, I was incredibly well adjusted.

He's the guy scampering around behind, mugging and doing pratfalls, giving the speaker donkey ears, while the professor -- or the culture -- gives its earnest speech.