Word.ws English Dictionary

poke fun

poke fun verb: to subject someone to laughter or ridicule.

Verb

poke fun (third-person singular simple present pokes fun, present participle poking fun, simple past and past participle poked fun)

  1. To subject someone to laughter or ridicule.
    • Trot laughed, but Cap'n Bill thought the little man was poking fun at him and so he scowled upon Pessim in a way that showed he was angry.1915, L. Frank Baum, chapter 5, in The Scarecrow of Oz
    Synonyms:
    make fun of

Synonyms of poke fun

Forms of poke fun

third-person singular presentpokes fun
present participlepoking fun
past participlepoked fun
pastpoked fun

Questions about poke fun

What does poke fun mean?
Poke fun means to subject someone to laughter or ridicule.
What part of speech is poke fun?
Poke fun is a verb.
What is the past tense of poke fun?
The past tense of poke fun is poked fun.

Words near poke fun in the dictionary

  1. poke borax
  2. poke bowl
  3. poke bowls
  4. poke box
  5. poke boxes
  6. poke fun
  7. poke holes in
  8. poke mullock
  9. poke one's fun
  10. poke one's nose into
  11. poke out

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: poke fun (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Back ache-poke fun.wav.

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