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: “The radio station built its whole breakfast show around prank calls to local businesses.”
How to Use Prank call
Learner’s notesIn plain EnglishA phone call made just to trick or wind someone up.
Informal. Official and legal contexts prefer "hoax call" or "nuisance call".
Fill the Gap
Can you complete this real example?
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.
Synonyms
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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.
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.