Word.ws English Dictionary

pulling someone's leg

pulling someone's leg is the present participle and gerund 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 pulling someone's leg

What is pulling someone's leg the present participle and gerund of?
Pulling someone's leg is the present participle and gerund of pull someone's leg.

Words near pulling someone's leg in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pulling 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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