This week's theme
Words from poker

This week's words
poker-faced
four-flush
penny-ante
standpat
blue chip

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A.Word.A.Day

PRONUNCIATION:

(FOHR-flush)

MEANING:

verb intr.: To bluff or act in a fraudulent manner.

ETYMOLOGY:

In a game of poker, a full flush is five cards of the same suit. A four-flush, only four cards of the same suit, is almost worthless. A player pretending to have a full flush while holding only a four-flush, is said to be four-flushing. Earliest documented use: 1896.

USAGE:

"When you cheat in car racing, it's supposed to be inventive. This was just cheap, lousy, four-flushing chicanery."
Sally Jenkins; A Rule Not Meant to Be Broken; The Washington Post; Feb 16, 2007.

"Bruce Olds pushes his readers so far and so forcibly away from his subject that they come away feeling abused, or at least four-flushed."
Donald Seacreast; Nodoby's Buckaroo; The World & I (Washington, DC); Dec 2001.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY: