April Fools' Day
2 synonyms for April Fools' Day, grouped by meaning and by how common each one is.
Noun — 1 April, a day on which people traditionally play tricks and tell invented stories, with the custom in many countries that the joking stops at noon.
Synonyms
Rare, literary or technical
Precise, but they will stand out — check the sense before using one.
April Fool's Day
All Fools' Day
How to use April Fools' Day
The word patterns that sound natural to a native speaker.
an April Fools' Day prank
fall for an April Fools' Day hoax
April Fools' Day stunt
Neutral; capitalised as a proper noun.
Etymology
From April fool, a person tricked on that date; the custom is recorded in Britain from the seventeenth century, but its origin is genuinely unknown and the popular explanations linking it to calendar reform are unverified.
Full origin of April Fools' Day →Frequently asked questions
Is it April Fools' Day or April Fool's Day?
Both spellings are in print and neither is wrong. "April Fools' Day" is the more common form and treats the day as belonging to all the fools; "April Fool's Day" treats it as the day of the individual fool who is tricked.
Why does the joking have to stop at midday?
In Britain and Ireland there is a long-standing convention that pranks played after noon rebound on the person playing them, who then becomes the fool. It is a custom rather than a rule, and it is not observed in most other countries.
Where did April Fools' Day come from?
Nobody knows. The frequently repeated story that it began when France moved New Year from late March to 1 January has no contemporary evidence behind it, and historians treat the origin as unsettled.
