Word.ws English Dictionary

worked the refs

worked the refs is the simple past and past participle of work the refs.

Meaning of work the refs

Verb

work the refs (third-person singular simple present works the refs, present participle working the refs, simple past and past participle worked the refs)

  1. To attempt to persuade the referee or other officials to view the players on one's team with a sympathetic bias.
    • You should also work the refs during pregame warmups, telling them how hard your players work on blocking out in practice and hope that the refs give your players a fair chance.1996, William E. Warren, L. Chapman, Basketball Coach's Survival Guide, →ISBN, page 233
  2. (broadly) To manipulate the press to view one's candidate favorably and to report negative stories on one's opponent.
    • Slater said that Bush would charm reporters in an attempt to "work the refs" much like a basketball coach will try to cajole and hassle referees in order to influence calls.2006, James E. Mueller, Towel Snapping the Press, →ISBN

Questions about worked the refs

What is worked the refs the simple past and past participle of?
Worked the refs is the simple past and past participle of work the refs.

Words near worked the refs in the dictionary

  1. worked the crowd
  2. worked the hole
  3. worked the hyphens
  4. worked the line
  5. worked the oracle
  6. worked the refs
  7. worked the room
  8. worked the system
  9. worked through
  10. worked to rule
  11. worked together

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: worked the refs (page history and authors); work the refs (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: “worked the refs.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/worked_the_refs. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.