Dad jokes refer to a variety of failed attempts at humor made by fathers, embarassingly bad jokes that they didn't realize themselves.

Dad jokes指老爸们想要表现一下幽默却导致冷场的笑话，讲得不好笑却不自知的笑话，好尴尬。即“老爸笑话”。

While the exact origin of the term "dad joke" is unknown, the earliest known use of the term online was posted in a thread by B3ta Forums member rob on December 10th, 2003, which asked other members to submit "lame jokes" made by their fathers. In the first 48 hours, the thread received 15 pages worth of replies.

Dad joke这个说法的确切起源目前尚不可考，已知的最早来源是B3ta论坛上一位叫rob的网友在2003年12月10日发表的一个帖子，让论坛的其他成员提交自己老爸曾经讲过的“蹩脚的笑话”。在帖子发出后的48小时内，就引来整整15页的回复。

这样的网络热潮立即被网络词典Urbandictionary注意到，不久之后就有网友贡献出相关词条。Dad joke一词也就开始被广泛使用和传播。