Word.ws English Dictionary

hold the cards

hold the cards verb: to be in a strong position, possessing significant advantages over someone else; to be in control of a situation involving multiple parties.

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
    • Once a ticket is paid for and the airline has your money, it holds the cards.1986 August 17, Peter H. Lewis, “Practical Traveller: Learning the ABC's — as well as the XYZ's — of Flying”, in New York Times, retrieved 12 Jan 2012

hold the cards meaning in Bengali

hold the cards in Bengali

একটি শক্তিশালী অবস্থানে থাকা

Synonyms of hold the cards

Forms of hold the cards

third-person singular presentholds the cards
present participleholding the cards
past participleheld the cards
pastheld the cards
alternative formhold all the cards

Questions about hold the cards

What does hold the cards mean?
Hold the cards means to be in a strong position, possessing significant advantages over someone else; to be in control of a situation involving multiple parties.
What is hold the cards in Bengali?
Hold the cards in Bengali is একটি শক্তিশালী অবস্থানে থাকা. See Hold the cards meaning in Bengali.
What part of speech is hold the cards?
Hold the cards is a verb.
What is the past tense of hold the cards?
The past tense of hold the cards is held the cards.

Words near hold the cards in the dictionary

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

Source and license

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

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-hold the cards.ogg.

Cite this entry: “hold the cards.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/hold_the_cards. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.