\ PRAT-fawl \, noun;
1.a fall in which one lands on the buttocks, often regarded as comical or humiliating.
2.a humiliating blunder or defeat.
Quotes:
Jerry Lewis, one of the most brilliant physical comedians, built his persona on deep sympathy for the sufferer of pratfalls , but he has paid a terrible price for the ones he took.
-- Richard Brody, "The Demise of Physical Comedy," The New Yorker , June 28, 2013
After Suez, for instance, which for England and France was the great postcolonial pratfall , the globally awaited cathartic humiliation of two nineteenth-century powers…
-- A. A. Gill, The Angry Island: Hunting the English , 2005
Origin:
Pratfall entered English in the 1930s. It combines prat and fall . The origin of prat is unknown. Fall comes from the Old English feallan .
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