Word.ws English Dictionary

pull someone's leg

pull someone's leg verb: to tease someone; to lead someone on; to goad someone into overreacting.

Verb

pull someone's leg (third-person singular simple present pulls someone's leg, present participle pulling someone's leg, simple past and past participle pulled someone's leg)

  1. (idiomatic) To tease someone; to lead someone on; to goad someone into overreacting.
    • I hadn't pulled Mrs. Barstow's leg for any of that stuff, she had just handed it to me on a platter, and that wasn't my fault.1934, Rex Stout, Fer-de-Lance, Bantam, published 1992, →ISBN, page 111
    • No, I'm just pulling your leg, it's crucifixion really.1979, Life of Brian, spoken by Mr. Cheeky (Eric Idle)
  2. (idiomatic, obsolete) To extract money from someone (by taking out a loan or by swindling).
    • I'm very glad to hear of his good fortune; but it's a deuced strange thing, for I saw him at the club last night and he never said a word of it. I'll pull his leg when I see him.1886, Mark Well, “An Old-Time Tip”, in Wallace's Monthly, volume 12
    • The verb 'to-pull-his-leg' means to extract from his pocket all the lucre it will yield.1893, John Kendrick Bangs, Coffee and Repartee

pull someone's leg meaning in Vietnamese

pull someone's leg in Vietnamese

to tease someone
nói sạo

Forms of pull someone's leg

third-person singular presentpulls someone's leg
present participlepulling someone's leg
past participlepulled someone's leg
pastpulled someone's leg

Origin of pull someone's leg

The phrase from Scotland originally meant to make a fool of someone, often by cheating him. One theory is that it is derived from tripping someone by yanking or pulling his leg in order to make him stumble and look foolish.

Words formed from pull someone's leg

Questions about pull someone's leg

What does pull someone's leg mean?
Pull someone's leg means to tease someone; to lead someone on; to goad someone into overreacting.
What is pull someone's leg in Vietnamese?
Pull someone's leg in Vietnamese is nói sạo. See Pull someone's leg meaning in Vietnamese.
What part of speech is pull someone's leg?
Pull someone's leg is a verb.
What is the past tense of pull someone's leg?
The past tense of pull someone's leg is pulled someone's leg.

Words near pull someone's leg in the dictionary

  1. pull someone over the coals
  2. pull someone's bacon out of the fire
  3. pull someone's chain
  4. pull someone's chestnuts out of the fire
  5. pull someone's fat out of the fire
  6. pull someone's leg
  7. pull someone's plonker
  8. pull someone's plumes
  9. pull start
  10. pull starts
  11. pull station

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pull someone's leg (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 someone's leg.ogg.

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