Word.ws English Dictionary

pulled someone's leg

pulled someone's leg is the simple past and past participle of pull someone's leg.

Meaning of pull someone's leg

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
  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

Questions about pulled someone's leg

What is pulled someone's leg the simple past and past participle of?
Pulled someone's leg is the simple past and past participle of pull someone's leg.

Words near pulled someone's leg in the dictionary

  1. pulled someone down a peg
  2. pulled someone over the coals
  3. pulled someone's bacon out of the fire
  4. pulled someone's chestnuts out of the fire
  5. pulled someone's fat out of the fire
  6. pulled someone's leg
  7. pulled someone's plonker
  8. pulled someone's plumes
  9. pulled strings
  10. pulled teeth
  11. pulled the fire alarm

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pulled someone's leg (page history and authors); 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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