Word.ws English Dictionary

pokes the bear

pokes the bear is the third-person singular simple present indicative of poke the bear.

Meaning of poke the bear

Verb

poke the bear (third-person singular simple present pokes the bear, present participle poking the bear, simple past and past participle poked the bear)

  1. (US, idiomatic) To deliberately aggravate somebody, especially somebody in a position of power or authority.
    • Throughout my training I witnessed several doctors run out of town because their honesty and outspokenness began to poke the bear.2012, Marty Makary, Unaccountable, Bloomsbury Publishing USA, →ISBN, page 17
  2. (idiomatic, slang) To deliberately anger Russia or the Russian government.

Questions about pokes the bear

What is pokes the bear the third-person singular simple present indicative of?
Pokes the bear is the third-person singular simple present indicative of poke the bear.

Words near pokes the bear in the dictionary

  1. pokes mullock
  2. pokes one's fun
  3. pokes one's nose into
  4. pokes out
  5. pokes someone's eye out
  6. pokes the bear
  7. Pokesdown
  8. pokeweed
  9. pokeweeds
  10. pokey
  11. pokeyman

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pokes the bear (page history and authors); poke the bear (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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