puckish

adjective

puck·ish ˈpə-kish

Synonyms of puckish next

: impish, whimsical

puckishly adverb

puckishness noun

Did you know?

We know Puck as "that merry wanderer of the night," the shape-changing, maiden-frightening, mischief-sowing henchman to the king of the fairies in William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. The Bard drew on English folklore in casting his character, but the traditional Puck was more malicious than the Shakespearean imp; he was an evil spirit or demon. In medieval England, this nasty hobgoblin was known as the puke or pouke, names related to the Old Norse pūki, meaning "devil." (There is no connection to modern English puke.) But it was the Bard's characterization that stuck, and by the time the adjective puckish started appearing regularly in English texts in the 1800s the association was one of impishness, not evil.

Examples of puckish in a Sentence

He had a puckish smile on his face. he takes a puckish delight in teasing her about her love life, or lack thereof

Recent Examples on the Web Saya Gray: Qwerty II EP [Dirty Hit] Qwerty II concludes Saya Gray’s dual-EP follow-up to her 2022 album, 19 Masters, swirling that record’s puckish R&B into hyperactive alt-pop. —

Madison Bloom, Pitchfork, 29 Mar. 2024 The honor followed on the heels of her BAFTA win for Yorgos Lanthimos’ puckish spin on the costume drama, in which Stone plays a woman who finds liberation and self-actualization after being brought back to life by an eccentric surgeon. —

Greg Braxton, Los Angeles Times, 11 Mar. 2024 While his work for clients generally calls for classical proportion, albeit with a modern eye, his personal taste is puckish, even zany. —

Nancy Hass Luana Rigolli, New York Times, 13 Sep. 2022 The Progressive Corporation struck advertising gold when its first campaign featuring a puckish employee named Flo debuted in 2008. —

Alicia Adamczyk, Fortune, 27 Nov. 2023 See all Example Sentences for puckish

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'puckish.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.