Word.ws English Dictionary

play the hand one is dealt

play the hand one is dealt verb: to use the resources which one actually has available; to operate realistically, within the limits of one's circumstances.

Verb

play the hand one is dealt (third-person singular simple present plays the hand one is dealt, present participle playing the hand one is dealt, simple past and past participle played the hand one was dealt)

  1. (idiomatic, informal) To use the resources which one actually has available; to operate realistically, within the limits of one's circumstances.
    • "Don't you care. Play the hand that's dealt you and let the boss worry."1919, William MacLeod Raine, chapter 6, in Oh, You Tex
    • "We have the players we have and I've got to play the hand dealt," Coslet said. "We are limited in what we can do."1992 October 1, Timothy W. Smith, “When the Going Gets Good, Jets Go Bad”, in New York Times, retrieved 09 Apr 2013

Forms of play the hand one is dealt

third-person singular presentplays the hand one is dealt
present participleplaying the hand one is dealt
past participleplayed the hand one was dealt
pastplayed the hand one was dealt
alternative formplay the hand dealt
alternative formplay the hand one was dealt
alternative formplay the hand that one is dealt
alternative formplay the hand that one was dealt

Questions about play the hand one is dealt

What does play the hand one is dealt mean?
Play the hand one is dealt means to use the resources which one actually has available; to operate realistically, within the limits of one's circumstances.
What part of speech is play the hand one is dealt?
Play the hand one is dealt is a verb.
What is the past tense of play the hand one is dealt?
The past tense of play the hand one is dealt is played the hand one was dealt.

Words near play the hand one is dealt in the dictionary

  1. play the gender card
  2. play the giddy goat
  3. play the giddy ox
  4. play the goat
  5. play the hand dealt
  6. play the hand one is dealt
  7. play the hand one was dealt
  8. play the hand that one is dealt
  9. play the hand that one was dealt
  10. play the man
  11. play the man and not the ball

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: play the hand one is dealt (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 the hand one is dealt.ogg.

Cite this entry: “play the hand one is dealt.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/play_the_hand_one_is_dealt. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.