Although Merriam-Webster is a dictionary of American English, it contains a range of words rarely heard outside Britain. Here are some of our favourites.
Definition - a stupid or foolish person
Prat has been British slang for the sort of person with whom you’d rather not share a long train journey since the middle of the 20th century. Prior to this the word served a number of other useful functions, with such meanings as “the buttocks” and “to nudge or push (as a person) with the buttocks.” A pratfall, now commonly used to mean “a humiliating mishap or blunder,” originally meant “a fall on the buttocks.”
”His father was ailing and Ravel dearly wanted him to see the première.” (Silly prat: did he not know why the father was ailing? Could he not have stopped his febrile pacing and enquired whether there might be any connection between the father’s illness and this opera?)
— Frank Delaney, Punch (London, Eng.), 26 Aug. 1987