Word.ws English Dictionary

ace up one's sleeve

ace up one's sleeve noun: a surprise advantage of which others are not aware.

Noun

ace up one's sleeve (plural aces up one's sleeve)

  1. (idiomatic) A surprise advantage of which others are not aware.
    • SCP-7450 is an apocalyptic scenario where the Foundation has to resort to an ace up their sleeves and belief in a higher power solves the problem, but not in the way anyone would expect.2023 October 14, “Exploring the SCP Foundation: SCP-7450 - L is for Lamentations” (0:49 from the start), in The Exploring Series, archived from the original on 14 Oct 2023

Synonyms of ace up one's sleeve

Forms of ace up one's sleeve

pluralaces up one's sleeve

Origin of ace up one's sleeve

From the dishonest hiding of a high-value ace card for use during play, e.g. in the game of poker.

Questions about ace up one's sleeve

What does ace up one's sleeve mean?
Ace up one's sleeve means a surprise advantage of which others are not aware.
What part of speech is ace up one's sleeve?
Ace up one's sleeve is a noun.
What is the plural of ace up one's sleeve?
The plural of ace up one's sleeve is aces up one's sleeve.

Words near ace up one's sleeve in the dictionary

  1. ace of queen
  2. ace of the deep
  3. ace out
  4. ace point
  5. ace points
  6. ace up one's sleeve
  7. ace-aro
  8. ace-high
  9. ace-spec
  10. ace/aro
  11. ACE1

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: ace up one's sleeve (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-ace up one's sleeve.ogg.

Cite this entry: “ace up one's sleeve.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/ace_up_one%27s_sleeve. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.