play one's cards right
play one's cards right verb: to act correctly; to make the right moves.
Verb
play one's cards right (third-person singular simple present plays one's cards right, present participle playing one's cards right, simple past and past participle played one's cards right)
- To act correctly; to make the right moves.
- If you play your cards right, you'll get the promotion you've been waiting for.
- If Mr. Trump’s lawyers had played their cards right, they most likely would have ended up with a hung jury or a misdemeanor conviction.2024 May 30, Renato Mariotti, “How Trump’s Team Blew It”, in The New York Times, →ISSN
- Synonyms:
- play one's cards well, play one's hand right
Synonyms of play one's cards right
Forms of play one's cards right
| third-person singular present | plays one's cards right |
|---|---|
| present participle | playing one's cards right |
| past participle | played one's cards right |
| past | played one's cards right |
Questions about play one's cards right
- What does play one's cards right mean?
- Play one's cards right means to act correctly; to make the right moves.
- What part of speech is play one's cards right?
- Play one's cards right is a verb.
- What is the past tense of play one's cards right?
- The past tense of play one's cards right is played one's cards right.
Words near play one's cards right in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: play one's cards right (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-play one's cards right.ogg.
Cite this entry: “play one's cards right.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/play_one%27s_cards_right. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.