puckish
adj/ˈpʌkɪʃ/
Etymology From Puck + -ish, after the mischievous fairy in English folklore who is also a character in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.
1
Having a tendency to play tricks on people or tease people by making silly jokes about them; mischievous.
- He has a puckish sense of humor.
- She has a puckish attitude.
4 more examples
- He has a puckish grin.
- They are so puckish for their love of practical jokes.
- Wolfowitz spoke softly to Yasa, who evidently had no idea who he was but responded with a puckish smile.2007 April 2, John Cassidy, “The Next Crusade”, in The New Yorker:
- “Chandler Bing,” wrote Matthew Perry in his puckish, self-mocking memoir, “changed the way that America spoke”.2023 October 29, Zoe Williams, “‘An ironic, self-deprecating metrosexual’: how Matthew Perry captured the spirit of the age”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:
- Derived terms
- puckishly, puckishness
- Related terms
- puck