Word.ws English Dictionary

stack the deck

stack the deck verb: to give an unfair advantage to somebody.

Verb

stack the deck (third-person singular simple present stacks the deck, present participle stacking the deck, simple past and past participle stacked the deck)

  1. (figuratively, intransitive) To give an unfair advantage to somebody.
    • Private equity can stack the deck in other ways, too. Firms can direct businesses they own to buy other companies and then act as broker on the deals, reaping transaction fees.2018 June 13, Bryce Covert, “The Demise of Toys 'R' Us Is a Warning”, in The Atlantic, →ISSN
    Synonyms:
    cheat

Synonyms of stack the deck

Forms of stack the deck

third-person singular presentstacks the deck
present participlestacking the deck
past participlestacked the deck
paststacked the deck

Questions about stack the deck

What does stack the deck mean?
Stack the deck means to give an unfair advantage to somebody.
What part of speech is stack the deck?
Stack the deck is a verb.
What is the past tense of stack the deck?
The past tense of stack the deck is stacked the deck.

Words near stack the deck in the dictionary

  1. stack room
  2. stack rooms
  3. stack smashing
  4. stack talk
  5. stack the cards
  6. stack the deck
  7. stack trace
  8. stack traces
  9. stack truck
  10. stack trucks
  11. stack up

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: stack the deck (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-us-stack the deck.ogg.

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