Word.ws English Dictionary

stands pat

stands pat is the third-person singular simple present indicative of stand pat.

Meaning of stand pat

Verb

stand pat (third-person singular simple present stands pat, present participle standing pat, simple past and past participle stood pat)

  1. (intransitive) To play one's hand without drawing any more cards.
    • With a mixed hand and the highest card the curse of Scotland, I've seen that man stand pat in a game with four millionaire mining men.1920, Peter B. Kyne, chapter IV, in The Understanding Heart
  2. (intransitive) To stop hitting; to declare one's hand as final.
    • After getting a hand of 20, the player stood pat.
    Synonyms:
    stand, stick
  3. (idiomatic) To resist changes.
    • China has cut rates and allowed banks to boost lending, while some countries, such as South Korea have stood pat, fearful that inflation pressures could reignite.2012, "Asia's Local Growth Dilemma", Wall Street Journal, by Alex Frangos, 21st of July

Questions about stands pat

What is stands pat the third-person singular simple present indicative of?
Stands pat is the third-person singular simple present indicative of stand pat.

Words near stands pat in the dictionary

  1. stands out a mile
  2. stands out like a sore thumb
  3. stands out like dog's balls
  4. stands over
  5. stands pad
  6. stands pat
  7. stands Sam
  8. stands sentinel
  9. stands sentry
  10. stands shilly-shally
  11. stands still

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: stands pat (page history and authors); stand pat (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.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “stands pat.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/stands_pat. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.