Word.ws English Dictionary

raising the stakes

raising the stakes is the present participle and gerund of raise the stakes.

Meaning of raise the stakes

Verb

raise the stakes (third-person singular simple present raises the stakes, present participle raising the stakes, simple past and past participle raised the stakes)

  1. (idiomatic) To increase in significance or risk.
    • The bank robber decided to take a hostage in order to raise the stakes.
  2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see raise, stakes (used literally e. g. of a hand of poker)
    • With a royal flush, he decided to raise the stakes.

Questions about raising the stakes

What is raising the stakes the present participle and gerund of?
Raising the stakes is the present participle and gerund of raise the stakes.

Words near raising the stakes in the dictionary

  1. raising the devil
  2. raising the flag and seeing who salutes
  3. raising the roof
  4. raising the specter
  5. raising the spectre
  6. raising the stakes
  7. raising to the ermine
  8. raising to the purple
  9. raising unshirted hell
  10. raising up
  11. raisings

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: raising the stakes (page history and authors); raise the stakes (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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