puckish · adj — having a tendency to play tricks on people or tease people by making silly jokes about them; mischievous. It carries an Arena rating of 1910, earned across 11 head-to-head judged battles.
Definition from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, puckish ranks #353 of 17,188 for Words That Escaped Their Books, #974 of 17,146 for Most Storied Words, #1,306 of 17,162 for Most Elegant Words, #2,953 of 17,177 for Most Whimsical Words.
puckish is pronounced /ˈpʌkɪʃ/.
Why “puckish” is a great word
Playfully mischievous, with a distinctive air of whimsical, harmless trickery. From Puck, the name of the mischievous fairy in English folklore and Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, and the adjectival suffix -ish, meaning 'having the characteristics of'; first attested in 1867. Unlike 'impish,' which carries a faint whiff of diabolical malice, or 'roguish,' which implies a worldly and charming disreputability, puckish mischief is rooted in the otherworldly and the gleefully absurd. It is the glint in the eye of someone who has swapped the sugar for salt, the feeling of a sudden breeze that snatches a hat, and the discovery of one's shoelaces neatly tied together—a gentle reminder that the orderly world rests upon a foundation of caprice, the mischief not of sin, but of sprites, and the world still bright enough to play within it.
❧ Essay by Lexicurio’s AI · definition, etymology & citations from published sources
Etymology
From Puck + -ish, after the mischievous fairy in English folklore who is also a character in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.
adj
- Having a tendency to play tricks on people or tease people by making silly jokes about them; mischievous.e.g.“He has a puckish sense of humor.”
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
Words closest in meaning
By meaning, not spelling — each word's AI semantic fingerprint, nearest first.