pattycake

See also: patty-cake and patty cake

English

Noun

pattycake (uncountable)

  1. (children's 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".
  2. (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.”

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