Word.ws English Dictionary

held the cards

held the cards is the simple past and past participle of hold the cards.

Meaning of hold the cards

Verb

hold the cards (third-person singular simple present holds the cards, present participle holding the cards, simple past and past participle held the cards)

  1. (idiomatic) To be in a strong position, possessing significant advantages over someone else; to be in control of a situation involving multiple parties.
    • "[B]ut if you make conditions I have no choice but to accept them, seeing that you hold the cards."1907, R. Austin Freeman, chapter 14, in The Red Thumb Mark

Questions about held the cards

What is held the cards the simple past and past participle of?
Held the cards is the simple past and past participle of hold the cards.

Words near held the cards in the dictionary

  1. held still
  2. held tack
  3. held that thought
  4. held the aces
  5. held the book
  6. held the cards
  7. held the floor
  8. held the line
  9. held the phone
  10. held the purse strings
  11. held the reins

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: held the cards (page history and authors); hold the 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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