poke fun

verb

"poke-fun" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“poke fun” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

Unranked
below top-frequency English
8
letters

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - To subject someone to laughter or ridicule.

Corpus desk

Index EN-poke-fun · poke fun · English

poke fun · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
  • LEN-LONG 8 letters
  • VOW-3 3 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-THIN "P" thin
  • PHOTO-UNK Peer pending

Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern

Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.

Key facts for poke fun
PropertyValue
Headwordpoke fun
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechVerb
Letters8
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “poke fun” in English

poke funfalls outside the top-100,000 ranked English words, the long-tail zone of technical, archaic, or low-frequency vocabulary, exactly where readers second-guess spellings most.

Beyond rank #100,000. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

poke fun is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as averb. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "To subject someone to laughter or ridicule.".

No misspelling variants are generated for poke fun in our index, a sign its spelling follows regular English conventions. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.

No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so any spelling logic here comes from how the word's sounds map to letters, not a documented origin story. The correct English form is poke fun, spelled P-O-K-E- -F-U-N.

Definition

  1. 1
    To subject someone to laughter or ridicule.

Recorded use

Wiktionary example

These source excerpts show how poke fun appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. 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.

Synonyms

This word in other languages

Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "poke fun"?
"poke fun" is spelled P-O-K-E- -F-U-N.
What does "poke fun" mean?
As a verb, "poke fun" means: To subject someone to laughter or ridicule.
What language does "poke fun" come from?
"poke fun" is a English word. PlainSpell covers definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list