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noun

prank call

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Prank call (noun) means a telephone call made to a stranger or a friend purely to trick, tease or annoy them, usually with a false story or a scripted joke. Example: “The radio station built its whole breakfast show around prank calls to local businesses.”

noun
1
A telephone call made to a stranger or a friend purely to trick, tease or annoy them, usually with a false story or a scripted joke.
"The radio station built its whole breakfast show around prank calls to local businesses."
"Two teenagers were cautioned after a night of prank calls to the fire service."
verb
1
To make such a call to someone.
"They spent the whole sleepover prank calling the local pizza place."

How to use prank call

Learner’s notes

In plain EnglishA phone call made just to trick or wind someone up.

When to use it

Informal. Official and legal contexts prefer "hoax call" or "nuisance call".

Easily confused with
crank call hoax call cold call
Common pairings
make a prank call a series of prank calls prank call the school classic prank call
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The radio station built its whole breakfast show around _____ to local businesses.

Etymology

A compound of prank and call, on the pattern of earlier crank call.

Origin: English

Synonyms

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crank call hoax call nuisance call hoax

Related words

lie con fraud nonsense cod prank hoax wind-up

Frequently asked questions

What is the difference between a prank call and a crank call?
They describe the same act, but the tone differs. "Prank call" suggests a joke aimed at getting a laugh, while "crank call" more often suggests a call made to harass, and is the older term in American English.
Are prank calls illegal?
Making a joke call to a friend is not usually an offence, but repeated or menacing calls to strangers can amount to harassment or malicious communications in the UK and to telephone harassment in most US states. Hoax calls to the emergency services are a specific criminal offence almost everywhere.
What is a swatting call?
Swatting is a far more serious form of hoax call in which someone reports a fake emergency, such as a hostage situation, to send armed police to another person's address. It has caused deaths and is prosecuted as a serious crime, not as a prank.
What is the meaning of prank call?
"prank call" (noun) means a telephone call made to a stranger or a friend purely to trick, tease or annoy them, usually with a false story or a scripted joke.

Example sentences

Real-world examples showing prank call in context, drawn from published sources. Any opinions expressed are those of the original source and do not reflect the views of FreeDict.com.

The prank call survives as a format because the caller controls everything except the one thing that makes it funny — how the person answering reacts.
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lie con fraud nonsense cod prank hoax wind-up