ace up one's sleeve

ace up one's sleeve

English

WOTD – 7 August 2006

Etymology

From the game of poker, from the dishonest hiding of a high-value Ace card for use during play.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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

1. (idiomatic) A surprise advantage of which others are not aware.

Translations

a surprise advantage of which others are not aware

Chinese: Mandarin: 王牌 (zh) (wángpái) Czech: Eso v rukávu Estonian: Trump tagataskust Finnish: ässä hihassa French: atout dans la manche m German: Ass im Ärmel n Italian: asso nella manica

Japanese: 切り札 (きりふだ, kirifuda) Norwegian: ess i ermet Polish: as w rękawie Portuguese: carta nas mangas f Russian: туз в рукаве́ (tuz v rukavé), козы́рна́я ка́рта f (kozýrnája kárta) Serbo-Croatian: кец у рукаву Swedish: äss i rockärmen