ace up one's sleeve

English

WOTD – 7 August 2006

Etymology

From the dishonest hiding of a high-value ace card for use during play, e.g. in the game of poker.

Pronunciation

  • Audio (General Australian):(file)

Noun

ace up one's sleeve (plural aces up one's sleeve)

  1. (idiomatic) A surprise advantage of which others are not aware.
    • 2023 October 14, “Exploring the SCP Foundation: SCP-7450 - L is for Lamentations” (0:49 from the start), in The Exploring Series‎[1], archived from the original on 14 October 2023:
      SCP-7450 is an apocalyptic scenario where the Foundation has to resort to an ace up their sleeves and belief in a higher power solves the problem, but not in the way anyone would expect.

Synonyms

Translations

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