Word.ws English Dictionary

tips the gaff

tips the gaff is the third-person singular simple present indicative of tip the gaff.

Meaning of tip the gaff

Verb

tip the gaff (third-person singular simple present tips the gaff, present participle tipping the gaff, simple past and past participle tipped the gaff)

  1. To give away how a magic trick is accomplished.
    • Penn and Teller see their style as rejecting the assumption that “the people in the audience are ignorant savages who will fall at our feet and worship us for performing supernatural miracles.” Penn may enjoy describing the “Penn & Teller” approach to magic as tipping the gaff...1989, Calvin Trillin, “A Couple of Eccentric Guys”, in The New Yorker
  2. To reveal a disguise or something hidden.
    • 1914: The Smart Set: A Magazine of Cleverness, Volume 42, "The Parasite" by George Bronson-Howard
      Lady! She couldn't disguise herself as a lady with that Slavonic map of hers tipping the gaff, and those heavy hoofs of hers.

Questions about tips the gaff

What is tips the gaff the third-person singular simple present indicative of?
Tips the gaff is the third-person singular simple present indicative of tip the gaff.

Words near tips the gaff in the dictionary

  1. tips over
  2. tips someone's velvet
  3. tips the balance
  4. tips the daddle
  5. tips the double
  6. tips the gaff
  7. tips the scale
  8. tips the scales
  9. tips the wink
  10. tips up
  11. TIPSes

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: tips the gaff (page history and authors); tip the gaff (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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Cite this entry: “tips the gaff.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/tips_the_gaff. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.