« Donner un poisson d'avril » entre au Dictionnaire de l'Académie française

1718

The Académie française dictionary records the idiom 'donner un poisson d'avril à quelqu'un', defined as obliging someone to undertake a pointless errand in order to mock them. This is the point at which the custom is formally lexicalised in the standard French reference dictionary, confirming it was established practice by the early 18th century. The definition matches the fool's-errand structure of De Dene's 1561 poem.