pratfall

/ˌprætˈfɔl/

Other forms: pratfalls

A pratfall is a mistake that is particularly embarrassing, like going to a job interview with stains on your shirt. It can also be a silly goof done on purpose to make people laugh, like slipping on a banana peel.

A pratfall originally referred to a fall on your butt, which was often done by comic actors for laughs. From there, it came to mean all sorts of unplanned screw-ups. A restaurant caught serving horsemeat has committed a pratfall. A politician’s inappropriate joke is a verbal pratfall. A football player who runs the wrong way and scores for the other team has done a pratfall. Oops!

Definitions of pratfall

1. noun

   a fall onto your buttocks
   type of:

   fall, spill, tumble

   a sudden drop from an upright position
2. noun

   an embarrassing mistake
   synonyms: bloomer, blooper, blunder, boo-boo, botch, bungle, flub, foul-up

   types:

   bobble

   the momentary juggling of a batted or thrown baseball

   spectacle

   a blunder that makes you look ridiculous; used in the phrase `make a spectacle of' yourself

   bull

   a serious and ludicrous blunder

   fumble, muff

   (sports) dropping the ball

   fluff

   a blunder (especially an actor's forgetting the lines)

   faux pas, gaffe, gaucherie, slip, solecism

   a socially awkward or tactless act

   howler

   a glaring blunder

   clanger

   a conspicuous mistake whose effects seem to reverberate

   misstep, stumble, trip, trip-up

   an unintentional but embarrassing blunder

   type of:

   error, fault, mistake

   a wrong action attributable to bad judgment or ignorance or inattention