"play all one's cards" meaning in English

See play all one's cards in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Forms: plays all one's cards [present, singular, third-person], playing all one's cards [participle, present], played all one's cards [participle, past], played all one's cards [past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|*}} play all one's cards (third-person singular simple present plays all one's cards, present participle playing all one's cards, simple past and past participle played all one's cards)
  1. (idiomatic) To use all one's resources. Tags: idiomatic Synonyms: play all one's cards at once
    Sense id: en-play_all_one's_cards-en-verb-wdeow2Bi Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header

Download JSON data for play all one's cards meaning in English (1.5kB)

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "plays all one's cards",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "playing all one's cards",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "played all one's cards",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "played all one's cards",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "play all one's cards (third-person singular simple present plays all one's cards, present participle playing all one's cards, simple past and past participle played all one's cards)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1980, Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus (lyrics and music), “The Winner Takes It All”, in Super Trouper, performed by ABBA",
          "text": "I've played all my cards\nAnd that's what you've done too\nNothing more to say\nNo more ace to play",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2012, Paul Watson, Up Pohnpei",
          "text": "We composed a calm email stating our 'interest in football in the region' and desire to 'find out more', deciding not to play all our cards at this stage.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To use all one's resources."
      ],
      "id": "en-play_all_one's_cards-en-verb-wdeow2Bi",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To use all one's resources."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "play all one's cards at once"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "play all one's cards"
}

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "plays all one's cards",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "playing all one's cards",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "played all one's cards",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "played all one's cards",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "play all one's cards (third-person singular simple present plays all one's cards, present participle playing all one's cards, simple past and past participle played all one's cards)",
      "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 verbs"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1980, Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus (lyrics and music), “The Winner Takes It All”, in Super Trouper, performed by ABBA",
          "text": "I've played all my cards\nAnd that's what you've done too\nNothing more to say\nNo more ace to play",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2012, Paul Watson, Up Pohnpei",
          "text": "We composed a calm email stating our 'interest in football in the region' and desire to 'find out more', deciding not to play all our cards at this stage.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To use all one's resources."
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To use all one's resources."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "play all one's cards at once"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "play all one's cards"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-03 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). 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.