Word.ws English Dictionary

played all one's cards

played all one's cards is the simple past and past participle of play all one's cards.

Meaning of play all one's cards

Verb

play all one's cards (third-person singular simple present plays all one's cards, present participle playing all one's cards, simple past and past participle played all one's cards)

  1. (idiomatic) To use all one's resources.
    • I've played all my cards
      And that's what you've done too
      Nothing more to say
      No more ace to play1980, Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus, “The Winner Takes It All”, in Super Trouper, performed by ABBA
    Synonyms:
    play all one's cards at once

Questions about played all one's cards

What is played all one's cards the simple past and past participle of?
Played all one's cards is the simple past and past participle of play all one's cards.

Words near played all one's cards in the dictionary

  1. played a part
  2. played a role
  3. played a rôle
  4. played about
  5. played against type
  6. played all one's cards
  7. played along
  8. played around
  9. played at
  10. played away
  11. played back

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: played all one's cards (page history and authors); play all one's 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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