call someone's bluff
call someone's bluff verb: to take action on the basis that another person is bluffing.
Verb
call someone's bluff (third-person singular simple present calls someone's bluff, present participle calling someone's bluff, simple past and past participle called someone's bluff)
- To take action on the basis that another person is bluffing.
- She was tempted to call his bluff, hardly believing that he would carry out his threat.
- Eventually the NUR overplayed its hands with an all-out strike. And when Peter Parker, the then-chairman of BR, who was well regarded among his staff, called their bluff by threatening to close down the entire network, they caved in.2022 December 14, Christian Wolmar, “Productivity should play no part in pay negotiations”, in RAIL, number 972, page 46
Forms of call someone's bluff
| third-person singular present | calls someone's bluff |
|---|---|
| present participle | calling someone's bluff |
| past participle | called someone's bluff |
| past | called someone's bluff |
Questions about call someone's bluff
- What does call someone's bluff mean?
- Call someone's bluff means to take action on the basis that another person is bluffing.
- What part of speech is call someone's bluff?
- Call someone's bluff is a verb.
- What is the past tense of call someone's bluff?
- The past tense of call someone's bluff is called someone's bluff.
Words near call someone's bluff in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: call someone's bluff (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-call someone's bluff.ogg.
Cite this entry: “call someone's bluff.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/call_someone%27s_bluff. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.