April Fools' Day
3
2.0
- noun
- /ˈeɪprɪl fuːlz deɪ/
:
Día de los Inocentes
- She announced she was quitting her job on April Fools' Day, but it turned out to be a joke.
- April Fools' Day prank
Examples
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On April Fools' Day, many people play practical jokes on their friends and family.
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Many people play pranks on April Fools' Day.
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Every year, our office organizes harmless pranks for April Fools' Day.
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I nearly believed his wild story until I remembered it was April Fools' Day.
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Newspapers sometimes publish fake stories on April Fools' Day to trick their readers.
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Don't believe anything on April Fools' Day!
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Every year on April Fools' Day, I try to trick my coworkers with a funny prank.
Synonyms
7
2.6
A day on April 1 when people play jokes and trick others
2
3.1
A day on the first of April when people play jokes on others
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase is directly compositional: 'April' (the month) + 'Fools'' (people acting foolishly) + 'day' (a named day), which signals a day in April associated with fools — i.e., people behaving foolishly or playing tricks. This construction is transparent and cross-linguistically familiar, so a B1 learner who knows the constituent words will very likely infer the holiday's general meaning.
Etymology
April Fools' Day may come from a time when New Year was celebrated at the end of March, so people who kept the old April date were laughed at as fools. That's why the day became a time for jokes and tricks, and people call each other 'April fools'.