"call someone's bluff" meaning in All languages combined

See call someone's bluff on Wiktionary

Verb [English]

Audio: en-au-call someone's bluff.ogg [Australia] Forms: calls someone's bluff [present, singular, third-person], calling someone's bluff [participle, present], called someone's bluff [participle, past], called someone's bluff [past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|*}} call someone's bluff (third-person singular simple present calls someone's bluff, present participle calling someone's bluff, simple past and past participle called someone's bluff)
  1. (idiomatic) To take action on the basis that another person is bluffing. Tags: idiomatic Translations (Translations): desafiarle el bluf (Spanish)

Inflected forms

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "calls someone's bluff",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "calling someone's bluff",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "called someone's bluff",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "called someone's bluff",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "call someone's bluff (third-person singular simple present calls someone's bluff, present participle calling someone's bluff, simple past and past participle called someone's bluff)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Entries with translation boxes",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Terms with Spanish translations",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              19,
              33
            ]
          ],
          "text": "She was tempted to call his bluff, hardly believing that he would carry out his threat.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              151,
              169
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2022 December 14, Christian Wolmar, “Productivity should play no part in pay negotiations”, in RAIL, number 972, page 46:",
          "text": "Eventually the NUR overplayed its hands with an all-out strike. And when Peter Parker, the then-chairman of BR, who was well regarded among his staff, called their bluff by threatening to close down the entire network, they caved in.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To take action on the basis that another person is bluffing."
      ],
      "id": "en-call_someone's_bluff-en-verb-davM8ai5",
      "links": [
        [
          "action",
          "action"
        ],
        [
          "bluffing",
          "bluffing"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To take action on the basis that another person is bluffing."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "es",
          "lang": "Spanish",
          "lang_code": "es",
          "sense": "Translations",
          "word": "desafiarle el bluf"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-au-call someone's bluff.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/0/08/En-au-call_someone%27s_bluff.ogg/En-au-call_someone%27s_bluff.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/08/En-au-call_someone%27s_bluff.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "call someone's bluff"
}
{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "calls someone's bluff",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "calling someone's bluff",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "called someone's bluff",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "called someone's bluff",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "call someone's bluff (third-person singular simple present calls someone's bluff, present participle calling someone's bluff, simple past and past participle called someone's bluff)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English terms with usage examples",
        "English verbs",
        "Entries with translation boxes",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries",
        "Terms with Spanish translations",
        "Translation table header lacks gloss"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              19,
              33
            ]
          ],
          "text": "She was tempted to call his bluff, hardly believing that he would carry out his threat.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              151,
              169
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "2022 December 14, Christian Wolmar, “Productivity should play no part in pay negotiations”, in RAIL, number 972, page 46:",
          "text": "Eventually the NUR overplayed its hands with an all-out strike. And when Peter Parker, the then-chairman of BR, who was well regarded among his staff, called their bluff by threatening to close down the entire network, they caved in.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To take action on the basis that another person is bluffing."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "action",
          "action"
        ],
        [
          "bluffing",
          "bluffing"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To take action on the basis that another person is bluffing."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "en-au-call someone's bluff.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/0/08/En-au-call_someone%27s_bluff.ogg/En-au-call_someone%27s_bluff.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/08/En-au-call_someone%27s_bluff.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "es",
      "lang": "Spanish",
      "lang_code": "es",
      "sense": "Translations",
      "word": "desafiarle el bluf"
    }
  ],
  "word": "call someone's bluff"
}

Download raw JSONL data for call someone's bluff meaning in All languages combined (2.3kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2026-09-09 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2026-09-02 using wiktextract (ccec6f1 and 4deed51). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.