Word.ws English Dictionary

drawn the long bow

drawn the long bow is the past participle of draw the long bow.

Meaning of draw the long bow

Verb

draw the long bow (third-person singular simple present draws the long bow, present participle drawing the long bow, simple past drew the long bow, past participle drawn the long bow)

  1. (idiomatic) To exaggerate; to tell tall tales.
    • […] Dublin residents, like those jarvies waiting news from abroad, would tempt any ancient mariner who sailed the ocean seas to draw the long bow about the schooner Hesperus and etcetera.1922 February 2, James Joyce, “[Episode 1: Telemachus]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company […], →OCLC, part I [Telemachia], page 16

Questions about drawn the long bow

What is drawn the long bow the past participle of?
Drawn the long bow is the past participle of draw the long bow.

Words near drawn the long bow in the dictionary

  1. drawn out
  2. drawn rein
  3. drawn stumps
  4. drawn the cloth
  5. drawn the line
  6. drawn the long bow
  7. drawn the short straw
  8. drawn through
  9. drawn to a close
  10. drawn to an end
  11. drawn together

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: drawn the long bow (page history and authors); draw the long bow (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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