trickster

Definition

Any of numerous figures featuring in various mythologies and folk traditions, who use guile and secret knowledge to challenge authority and play tricks and pranks on others with their acts of trickery; any similar figure in literature.

Etymology

From trick + -ster.

Example Sentences

• "1991, Alan R. Velie (compiler and editor), American Indian Literature: An Anthology, Revised edition, page 44, The trickster is one of the oldest and most widespread of mythological and literary figures. […] As the name implies, the trickster is, on one level—probably the most important—an amoral practical joker who wanders about playing pranks on unsuspecting victims […] With all the fluctuations, certain things about the trickster are predictable: he is always a wanderer, always hungry, and usually oversexed. Tricksters abound in folktales […] ."
• "And let us begin with those sympathetic elements, the tricksters who obtain the lovers and the land, always at the expense of fools and knaves, sometimes at the expense of other tricksters."
• "A skilled trickster knows how to outsmart their enemies with ease."

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