Word.ws English Dictionary

pull a rabbit out of a hat

pull a rabbit out of a hat verb: to do something surprising and beneficial that is unexpected.

Verb

pull a rabbit out of a hat (third-person singular simple present pulls a rabbit out of a hat, present participle pulling a rabbit out of a hat, simple past and past participle pulled a rabbit out of a hat)

  1. (idiomatic) To do something surprising and beneficial that is unexpected.
    • But Salmond the magician's dazzle has not pulled those crucial rabbits out of his hat. Not on tax and spending, on the currency union which he wants (but rUK does not), on Scotland's relations with an EU which does not want this aggro.2014 September 8, Michael White, “Roll up, roll up! The Amazing Salmond will show a Scotland you won't believe”, in The Guardian

Forms of pull a rabbit out of a hat

third-person singular presentpulls a rabbit out of a hat
present participlepulling a rabbit out of a hat
past participlepulled a rabbit out of a hat
pastpulled a rabbit out of a hat
alternative formpull a rabbit from a hat

Origin of pull a rabbit out of a hat

In reference to a popular conjuring trick.

Questions about pull a rabbit out of a hat

What does pull a rabbit out of a hat mean?
Pull a rabbit out of a hat means to do something surprising and beneficial that is unexpected.
What part of speech is pull a rabbit out of a hat?
Pull a rabbit out of a hat is a verb.
What is the past tense of pull a rabbit out of a hat?
The past tense of pull a rabbit out of a hat is pulled a rabbit out of a hat.

Words near pull a rabbit out of a hat in the dictionary

  1. pull a few strings
  2. pull a Homer
  3. pull a lever
  4. pull a permit
  5. pull a rabbit from a hat
  6. pull a rabbit out of a hat
  7. pull a sickie
  8. pull a train
  9. pull a vanishing act
  10. pull about
  11. pull ahead

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pull a rabbit out of a hat (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-pull a rabbit out of a hat.ogg.

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