Word.ws English Dictionary

pulls someone's leg

pulls someone's leg is the third-person singular simple present indicative 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 pulls someone's leg

What is pulls someone's leg the third-person singular simple present indicative of?
Pulls someone's leg is the third-person singular simple present indicative of pull someone's leg.

Words near pulls someone's leg in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pulls 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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