How to Use practical joke in a Sentence

practical joke

noun
  • One of the children filled the sugar bowl with salt as a practical joke.
  • This, of course, isn't the first time Reynolds has played a practical joke on his loved ones.
    Chelsey Sanchez, Harper's BAZAAR, 23 June 2020
  • But no, this wasn’t any kind of practical joke or movie scene.
    Vogue, 23 Feb. 2018
  • The idea goes back to a practical joke team members often play on a new bat boy.
    Steve Gardner, USA TODAY, 30 June 2021
  • Gabourey Sidibe is taking her love for practical jokes to the next level.
    Stephanie Sengwe, Peoplemag, 3 July 2023
  • All this takes place on Prank Day, when Sims play practical jokes on one another.
    Bethy Squires, Vulture, 2 June 2023
  • Detroit Free Press Will Dowell loves few things more than a good practical joke.
    Chris Solari, Detroit Free Press, 24 Apr. 2020
  • Spring-training suspense revolved more around what practical joke would come next more than who would make the team.
    David Haugh, chicagotribune.com, 28 Mar. 2018
  • All of a sudden, the party was over—my dad’s greatest practical joke was kaput.
    Gregg Opelka, WSJ, 18 June 2021
  • The crowd also was incensed by a practical joke that brought a fire department hose cart and a hook and ladder truck clanging up to the Lee home.
    Ben Welter, Star Tribune, 29 May 2020
  • Brady tried to loosen things up by playing a practical joke that involved letting a ferret loose in the training room.
    Gary Gramling, SI.com, 20 Jan. 2018
  • So this isn't some anonymous troll or a fly-by-night company that was set up just to play a practical joke on the Internet.
    Kyle Orland, Ars Technica, 19 June 2019
  • His second thought: Some rogue curator might have done it as a practical joke.
    Jonathon Keats, Discover Magazine, 30 Apr. 2015
  • Others find humor and stress relief in a good laugh and an amusing practical joke.
    Washington Post, 1 Apr. 2021
  • Buss never minded being the butt of the players’ mocking or practical jokes, as long as everyone got a laugh out of it and got work in.
    Paul Sullivan, chicagotribune.com, 1 Nov. 2019
  • This strikes me as a practical joke of cosmic proportions.
    Robert Hackett, Fortune, 8 Sep. 2017
  • George loved practical jokes, going to extreme lengths for the ultimate prank.
    courant.com, 26 Oct. 2019
  • The counter-pasta video in question seems to be a mash-up of the two genres — a three-minute-long video featuring questionable food that just has to be a practical joke, doesn’t it?
    Natalie Gontcharova, refinery29.com, 12 May 2021
  • Three times this has happened to me; once, regretfully, the charge was led by Herr Doktor, who at least was playing a practical joke.
    Marc Peruzzi, Outside Online, 15 May 2018
  • The cost of the fish, packaging and international shipping amounted to about $150, all for what Meeks calls a big practical joke.
    Tim Hackett, SI.com, 5 Apr. 2018
  • Snipe hunting is a practical joke, a fool's errand, like being asked to find a left-handed screwdriver.
    Matthew Walther, TheWeek, 19 Nov. 2020
  • From flying tackles to fishing rods, from heavy drinking sessions to practical jokes, there was true off-pitch madness amid all the on-pitch greatness.
    SI.com, 24 June 2018
  • DeZago said the signs were most likely taken from other locations during the night by local youths and placed on that one lawn as a practical joke.
    BostonGlobe.com, 7 May 2021
  • The card game, more a practical joke, is when a dealer creates the false impression of a legitimate game and then simply throws the deck into the air and instructs players to pick up the cards.
    AZCentral.com, 28 June 2021
  • The practical joke was in poor taste, given Bassett had already lost a close coworker and friend, Chadwick Boseman.
    Essence, 8 Nov. 2020
  • This raised new problems for Heflin, who now realized the practical joke had spread beyond Mission Control.
    Eric Berger, Ars Technica, 23 Nov. 2020
  • The disguise played a superbly Tuscan practical joke on his unwitting hosts.
    Ingrid D. Rowland, The New York Review of Books, 13 May 2021
  • Only then did Simon realize that Onassis had played a practical joke on her.
    NBC News, 22 Oct. 2019
  • Over the years, his greatest practical jokes include: Filling towels with shaving cream.
    Alex Prewitt, SI.com, 8 Feb. 2018
  • This could be a big practical joke by Embiid, or the work of some crazed Sixers fan, or just another brilliant maneuver by Danny Ainge.
    Michael Rosenberg, SI.com, 30 May 2018

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

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