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)
- 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
- 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 present | breasts one's cards |
|---|---|
| present participle | breasting one's cards |
| past participle | breasted one's cards |
| past | breasted 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
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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Cite this entry: “breast one's cards.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/breast_one%27s_cards. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
