Word.ws English Dictionary

breast one's cards

breast one's cards verb: to hold one's cards close to the chest.

Verb

breast one's cards (third-person singular simple present breasts one's cards, present participle breasting one's cards, simple past and past participle breasted one's cards)

  1. To hold one's cards close to the chest.
    • Flynt shifted in his chair, breasting his cards, then glared at Sunny. "You'll have to wait till I play this hand.1995, Jane Peart, A Distant Dawn, →ISBN, page 25
    • Some experts also use an extra eye, well trained in peripheral vision, to catch a glimpse of an opponent's cards - leading to the firm injunction, "Breast your cards, partner!"2006, The Bulletin - Issues 6536-6544, page 157
  2. To avoid revealing information.
    • A firm believer in breasting his cards, Jenks was keeping the "Pulitzer" file under wraps a while longer.1996, Marilyn T. Quayle, The Campaign: A Novel, page 121
    • But he must hold his tongue and breast his cards.2014, Becky Lee Weyrich, Hot Winds from Bombay, →ISBN

Forms of breast one's cards

third-person singular presentbreasts one's cards
present participlebreasting one's cards
past participlebreasted one's cards
pastbreasted one's cards

Questions about breast one's cards

What does breast one's cards mean?
Breast one's cards means to hold one's cards close to the chest.
What part of speech is breast one's cards?
Breast one's cards is a verb.
What is the past tense of breast one's cards?
The past tense of breast one's cards is breasted one's cards.

Words near breast one's cards in the dictionary

  1. breast lines
  2. breast milk
  3. breast milks
  4. breast mint
  5. breast mints
  6. breast one's cards
  7. breast pad
  8. breast pads
  9. breast pang
  10. breast pocket
  11. breast pockets

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: breast one's cards (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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