play a joke on

1. 1.

   subject to a playful hoax or joke

   Synonymshoaxpull someone's leg

   Broaderdeceive
2. 2.

   deceive somebody

   “We tricked the teacher into thinking that class would be cancelled next week”

   Synonymsflim-flamplay trickstrickfobfoxpull a fast one onplay a trick on

   Broaderdeceive

   Narrowersnooker

Questions about play a joke on

What does play a joke on mean?

play a joke on means "subject to a playful hoax or joke". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

What is another word for play a joke on?

Close synonyms include hoax, pull someone's leg, flim-flam, play tricks, trick. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is play a joke on a common word?

play a joke on is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.