What's the difference between humbug and prank?

Humbug


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To deceive; to impose; to cajole; to hoax.
  • (n.) An imposition under fair pretenses; something contrived in order to deceive and mislead; a trick by cajolery; a hoax.
  • (n.) A spirit of deception; cajolery; trickishness.
  • (n.) One who deceives or misleads; a deceitful or trickish fellow; an impostor.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Vice, folly and humbug – it is the point of satire really.
  • (2) What more timely image could there be for his departure than a Christmas costume and a prescience for all the humbug that will inevitably attend his death.
  • (3) Shortly after, they began to produce confectioneries such as chocolate limes, humbugs and caramels.
  • (4) Gary McNair: War on Christmas Anyone who has ever felt like saying “Bah, humbug!” to the John Lewis ad will find a kindred spirit in Gary McNair, playing a Santa working in a down-at-heel Christmas grotto who decides to investigate what Christmas means if you are poor.
  • (5) But, you may exclaim, what humbug for countries that invaded Iraq to excoriate others for violating sovereignty.
  • (6) Counties lose their names, trains lose their livery, ginger snaps lose their flavour and mint humbugs their sharp corners ... under my derationalisation programme, Yorkshire would get back its Ridings, the red telephone box would be a preserved species, there would be Pullman cars called Edna, a teashop in every high street and a proper card index in the public library."
  • (7) Accusing his opponents of "the most blatant hypocrisy in pretending they have changed to a modern, enlightened party", Lord Lester said: "What they have done is seek to destroy the central purpose of the bill under the guise of giving rights to others and it's complete humbug done for electoral purposes."
  • (8) It has not reached the pitch of disintegration at which humbug can be dropped."
  • (9) Lymphocystis disease is reported for the first time from the white-tailed damselfish, Dascyllus aruanus, and the black-tailed humbug, Dascyllus melanurus.
  • (10) I thought of the tourist scrums pushing each other off the pavements, jostling for souvenir humbugs and wind-up Beefeaters.
  • (11) Typical young man's title, you see, typical piece of that sort of humbugging, canting rhetoric, which young men - bless their hearts - specialise in.
  • (12) We probably all know a few pre-Games humbug-criers – shouting themselves hoarse in stadiums or rapt and sometimes in tears in front of the TV – who have looked like Scrooge on Christmas morning in the last few weeks.
  • (13) So the return of WTPS may serve to revive the genre, the old ghost donning its armour to do battle once more with humbug and pomposity.
  • (14) It was a strange experience to hear this paragon of logic, sceptical of all humbug trotting out stories that normally he would have scoffed at.
  • (15) It's enough to put you off shopping altogether, and has done for Nicole Slavin who is "bah humbug about Christmas , partly because of the commercialisation and the sheer social pressure to buy people things".
  • (16) For Labour, with the taste of Suez still in their mouths, Hugh Gaitskell described this as "the worst humbug and hypocrisy."
  • (17) Their latest, Humbug , recorded in the Californian desert with Josh Homme, reveals a more mature, assured band.

Prank


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To adorn in a showy manner; to dress or equip ostentatiously; -- often followed by up; as, to prank up the body. See Prink.
  • (v. i.) To make ostentatious show.
  • (n.) A gay or sportive action; a ludicrous, merry, or mischievous trick; a caper; a frolic.
  • (a.) Full of gambols or tricks.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) She was not aware that it was an assassination attempt by alleged foreign agents.” If at least one of the women thought the killing was part of an elaborate prank, it might explain the “LOL” message emblazoned in large letters one of the killers t-shirts.
  • (2) The mayor is a good person, but no one invited him, certainly not officially … The pope was furious.” While the prank provided fodder to critics of the mayor, it also underscored a more serious issue between the Vatican and Rome just a few months ahead of the church’s jubilee year of mercy, which begins on 8 December.
  • (3) The furore over Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand's prank-gone-wrong brought the debate surrounding boorish comedy to a head, and has shifted the goalposts for broadcast comedy.
  • (4) The prank involved a man saying a vulgar phrase on air while Shauna Hunt, a reporter with Toronto-based television news channel CityNews, interviewed fans after a soccer match.
  • (5) "It's like someone's playing a prank, because we came so close, after having gone through so much," says Sara, Abbas's 24-year-old sister.
  • (6) Some audience members thought he was part of a prank.
  • (7) Como Park Zoo and Conservatory came up with the idea in response to a common prank where people leave trick messages for friends from people named things like Don Key and Sally Mander, then including the phone number for the local zoo.
  • (8) We heard from Plaxico Burress on Tuesday that he put grapes in Eli Manning's shoes for a prank.
  • (9) The prank is very nearly as cruel as the reality would have been in such an instance.
  • (10) It felt like a very natural combination on both sides.” The success of the Pokémon April Fool pranks showed that the underlying mechanics of Ingress could be repurposed, to build something that could bring in millions of players who would never usually look twice at the sci-fi trappings of the original game.
  • (11) April 1, 2016 April Fools’ Day is not historically an international holiday but countries around the world have celebrated a day of pranking.
  • (12) Rob enlisted James's help to play a prank on another friend, hoisting a bike into a tree, out of reach.
  • (13) Did he not expect people to laugh out loud at his pranks?
  • (14) The lightning-fast and scrupulously rational online judicial process through which society punishes the guilty, eg furiously tweeting death threats at an Australian DJ whose prank telephone calls are ethically indistinguishable from murder.
  • (15) Concluding that only Piz could have concocted such a vile prank, Logan laid down the law, sentencing Veronica’s boyfriend to major beatdown.
  • (16) The doses were so high and it did it so fast and all over the body, so it would have affected his heart, it would have affected his lungs, it would have affected everything.” Asked how long it took for Kim to die after he was attacked, Subramaniam said: “I would think it was about, from the time of onset, from the time of application, 15-20 minutes.” Kim Jong-nam killing: suspect 'paid $90 to take part in prank' Read more Despite the poisoning, Malaysia has insisted the killing poses no remaining danger to the public and on Sunday declared its international airport a “safe zone” after completing a sweep of the terminal where Kim had been assaulted.
  • (17) They looked like highly-trained assassins but may actually have been dupes , tricked into thinking they were taking part in a prank TV show.
  • (18) A Canadian television sports reporter took her on-air trolls to task on Sunday after falling victim to a prank that has overwhelmingly targeted female live television reporters over the past year and four months and appears to brazenly glorify and celebrate the sexual assault of women.
  • (19) But Prince Charles seemed to make light of the prank at an engagement at HMS Belfast on Thursday.
  • (20) He later explained that he was taking the "feminine garments to a lady in Gibraltar and thought that he would try them on "for a prank".