pattycake
See also: patty-cake and patty cake
English
[edit]Noun
[edit]pattycake (uncountable)
- (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".
- (colloquial) A childish or time-wasting activity.
- 2001, Dennis J. Reardon, Plays, page 31:
- This Cherokee County Sheriff goes about two-fifty and he don't play pattycake. He's gonna wanna know where you were yesterday.
- 2007, Gary Kern, The Kravchenko Case: One Man's War on Stalin, page 67:
- “Stalin's boys don't play pattycake with people like Mr. Kravchenko.”
Alternative forms
[edit]- (game): pat-a-cake (UK), patacake
Translations
[edit]children's game in which two people alternately clap their own and each other's hands
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