Etymology: Cognate with early modern Dutch parte trick, prank (Dutch part ; compare Middle Dutch pratte stubbornness, Dutch prat pride (1567)) and (from a variant of the same base with i-mutation) Middle Dutch perte trick, stratagem (compare Dutch pret pleasure (c1600)), German regional (Low German: East Friesland) pret pleasure, Old Icelandic prettr trick, Norwegian prette trick; further etymology uncertain. Compare pretty adj., prat adj.The word is not well attested in Middle English, but was apparently borrowed from Middle English into Cornish:?a1450 (?1350–75) Resurrection of Lord in E. Norris Anc. Cornish Drama (1859) II. 48 Thy'nny ef a wruk an prat hag a fyes thyworthy'n. Sc. National Dict. s.v. records the word as still in use in Shetland (as obsolescent) and Caithness in 1966.

Etymology: Origin unknown.

Etymology: < prat n.¹ Compare earlier pretty adj.Attested earlier as a byname: Lefwinus Prat, early 12th cent. in the Latin Gesta Herewardi, referring to a comrade of Hereward the Wake, whose byname the author proceeds to explain as follows: id est Astutus, quod ab inimicis saepe captus caute evaserit, multociensque et suis occisis custodibus, unde sic vocatus ‘that is, the Cunning, because though often captured by his enemies, he had cunningly escaped, many times killing his very guards, whence he was so called’. Compare also the surnames Wlfric Prat (1179), Withmer' Pret (1179), Dereman le Prat (1198), etc.

Etymology: Apparently < prat n.¹ With sense 1 perhaps compare pract v. (compare pract v. 2, practing adj. at pract v. Derivatives). In sense 2 apparently sometimes influenced by (or perhaps independently < ) prat n.³