rickroll.
To mislead (someone) into following a seemingly innocuous hyperlink, or sometimes a QR code, that leads to a YouTube video of Rick Astley's song "Never Gonna Give You Up".
Meaning & usage
To mislead (someone) into following a seemingly innocuous hyperlink, or sometimes a QR code, that leads to a YouTube video of Rick Astley's song "Never Gonna Give You Up".
I try not to get rickrolled by sketchy YouTube links, but sometimes you let your guard down.
To surprise or trick (someone) into hearing this song.
The DJ rickrolled the whole audience by suddenly playing Rick Astley’s hit song.
To cause (someone) to unexpectedly engage with this song through an indirect method, such as through steganography, sheet music, or by inserting the lyrics into an unrelated context.
She inserted the lyrics of “Never Gonna Give You Up” into her speech so casually that most listeners didn’t even realize they’d been rickrolled.
Where this word comes from
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₃reǵ- Proto-Indo-European *-s Proto-Indo-European *h₃rḗǵs Proto-Celtic *rīxsbor. Proto-Germanic *rīks Proto-West Germanic *rīk Proto-Indo-European *kret-der.? Proto-Germanic *harduz Proto-Indo-European *-yos Proto-Indo-European *-yós Proto-Germanic *-jaz Proto-West Germanic *-ī Proto-West Germanic *hardu Proto-West Germanic *Rīkuhardu Old High German Rihhart Middle High German Rihardbor. Medieval Latin Richardusder. Old French Richardbor. Middle English Rycharde English Richardder. English Rick (Astley) Proto-Germanic *dūkaną Proto-West Germanic *dūkan Old English dū̆ce Middle English doke English duck English roll English duckroll blend English rickroll The verb is a blend of Rick + duckroll, combining the name of the British pop singer and songwriter Rick Astley (born 1966) with a reference to the duckroll prank on the website 4chan, in which users tricked into clicking on a hyperlink were led to an image of a duck on wheels. The word was coined by the American YouTuber Shawn Cotter (born 1987) who, under the handle “cotter548”, uploaded the music video of Astley’s song “Never Gonna Give You Up” (1987) to the online video-sharing service YouTube and then posted messages on 4chan on May 15, 2007 ostensibly with links to a trailer for the forthcoming game Grand Theft Auto IV. People who clicked on the links instead saw the Astley video with the caption “You just got Rickroll’d” scrolling across the screen. The noun is derived from the verb.
An act of or attempt at rickrolling.
You have to check out this link. Not a rickroll.
Where this word comes from
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₃reǵ- Proto-Indo-European *-s Proto-Indo-European *h₃rḗǵs Proto-Celtic *rīxsbor. Proto-Germanic *rīks Proto-West Germanic *rīk Proto-Indo-European *kret-der.? Proto-Germanic *harduz Proto-Indo-European *-yos Proto-Indo-European *-yós Proto-Germanic *-jaz Proto-West Germanic *-ī Proto-West Germanic *hardu Proto-West Germanic *Rīkuhardu Old High German Rihhart Middle High German Rihardbor. Medieval Latin Richardusder. Old French Richardbor. Middle English Rycharde English Richardder. English Rick (Astley) Proto-Germanic *dūkaną Proto-West Germanic *dūkan Old English dū̆ce Middle English doke English duck English roll English duckroll blend English rickroll The verb is a blend of Rick + duckroll, combining the name of the British pop singer and songwriter Rick Astley (born 1966) with a reference to the duckroll prank on the website 4chan, in which users tricked into clicking on a hyperlink were led to an image of a duck on wheels. The word was coined by the American YouTuber Shawn Cotter (born 1987) who, under the handle “cotter548”, uploaded the music video of Astley’s song “Never Gonna Give You Up” (1987) to the online video-sharing service YouTube and then posted messages on 4chan on May 15, 2007 ostensibly with links to a trailer for the forthcoming game Grand Theft Auto IV. People who clicked on the links instead saw the Astley video with the caption “You just got Rickroll’d” scrolling across the screen. The noun is derived from the verb.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.