Word.ws English Dictionary

pattycake

US/ˈpætikeɪk/

pattycake noun: a children's game in which two people alternately clap their own and each other's hands, often to the accompaniment of the nursery rhyme "Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker's man".

Noun

pattycake (uncountable)

  1. (children's games) A children's game in which two people alternately clap their own and each other's hands, often to the accompaniment of the nursery rhyme "Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker's man".
  2. (colloquial) A childish or time-wasting activity.
    • This Cherokee County Sheriff goes about two-fifty and he don't play pattycake. He's gonna wanna know where you were yesterday.2001, Dennis J. Reardon, Plays, page 31
    • “Stalin's boys don't play pattycake with people like Mr. Kravchenko.”2007, Gary Kern, The Kravchenko Case: One Man's War on Stalin, page 67

Forms of pattycake

alternative formpat-a-cake
alternative formpatacake

Questions about pattycake

What does pattycake mean?
Pattycake means a children's game in which two people alternately clap their own and each other's hands, often to the accompaniment of the nursery rhyme "Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker's man".
What part of speech is pattycake?
Pattycake is a noun.
How do you pronounce pattycake?
Pattycake is pronounced /ˈpætikeɪk/ (US).

Words near pattycake in the dictionary

  1. patty melt
  2. patty melts
  3. patty shell
  4. patty shells
  5. patty-cake
  6. pattycake
  7. pattypan
  8. pattypan squash
  9. pattypans
  10. patté
  11. pattée

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pattycake (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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