rickroll

The story

1. Proto-Indo-European*h₃reǵ-
2. Proto-Indo-European*h₃rḗǵs
3. Proto-Celtic*rīxs
4. Proto-Germanic*rīks
5. Proto-West Germanic*rīk
6. Proto-Indo-European*kret-der.?
7. Proto-Germanic*harduz
8. Proto-West Germanic*hardu
9. Proto-West Germanic*Rīkuhardu
10. Old High GermanRihhart
11. Middle High GermanRihard
12. Medieval LatinRichardus
13. Old FrenchRichard
14. Middle EnglishRycharde
15. EnglishRichard
16. EnglishRick (Astley)
17. Proto-Germanic*dūkaną
18. Proto-West Germanic*dūkan
19. Old Englishdū̆ce
20. Middle Englishdoke
21. Englishduck
22. Englishroll
23. Englishduckroll
24. English todayrickroll

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.