bluff
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
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Some interpreted the move as the market calling the Federal Reserve’s bluff.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 3, 2026
“I think the best way to put it is that the market is calling his bluff on inflation,” said Steve Sosnick, chief strategist at Interactive Brokers.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 29, 2026
On a chilly spring night, Caligiuri, wearing a hooded Adidas jacket and black sweatpants, stands in the center of a small soccer field on a bluff in Mission Viejo.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 7, 2026
“And he doesn’t bluff, either. What he does is groom us. He prepares us for things that would otherwise be unthinkable.”
From Salon ● May 26, 2026
From the top of the bluff, you can see out over it, over where we drove our feet into oblivion by walking it all.
From "The Knife of Never Letting Go" by Patrick Ness
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Separately, it emerged at an ongoing inquiry that Mr Williams had described a campaigner who tried to draw attention to faults in Horizon software in 2015 as a "bluffer".
From BBC ● Apr. 18, 2024
He was a bluffer, implying he advised people he didn’t, and a leaker, ratting out his allies in pursuit of his own agenda.
From Slate ● Aug. 3, 2016
A bluffer, a gambler… he’d rather do it the hard way.
From New York Times ● Feb. 29, 2012
He'd been a bit of a bluffer at his first musical conservatoire.
From The Guardian ● Nov. 23, 2010
I only used her as a bluffer, and she has often responded to my wants successfully.
From Forty Years a Gambler on the Mississippi by George H. Devol
Biggest and bluffest of the four executive vice presidents is balding, 61-year-old Marvin E. Coyle, known as "Mr. Facts & Figures."
From Time Magazine Archive
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Preparatory work had been done by a committee headed by Arthur Balfour Baron Riverdale of Sheffield, 62, one of Britain's biggest, baldest, blondest, bluffest steel tycoons.
From Time Magazine Archive
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Among the latter may be classed Karl Steinmetz—the bluffest of the bluff—innocent even of his own innocence.
From The Sowers by Henry Seton Merriman
In his bluffest and heartiest way Blake refused to hear of such a thing.
From Love Eternal by Henry Rider Haggard
At this stroke the man began to get angry; he frowned, and in his bluffest tone, began: "Look here now, you—" "Ta, ta, ta," interrupted M. Lecoq.
From The Mystery of Orcival by Émile Gaboriau
It was the culmination of a series of feints and bluffs in the preceding hours and days as the former reality TV star kept the world guessing.
From Barron's ● Feb. 28, 2026
The agency posted photos online of the firefighters setting up a rope system to recover the body from the beach to the bluffs.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 28, 2025
Downtown, where bluffs rise above the serpentine Mississippi River, George Campbell was walking his goldendoodle, Zac, when he spotted a group of National Guard soldiers in fatigues, handguns holstered at their hips.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 29, 2025
Across the 100 or so miles west of Madison, bluffs still soar, valleys still plunge and the air still holds more birdsong than bustle.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 3, 2025
At its far edge, a forest of oak and hickory topped a line of bluffs.
From "1491" by Charles C. Mann
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Later, when sent to a chemical plant, he volunteered to work as a welder and bluffed his way through a quiz designed to test his qualifications.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 2, 2026
He bluffed, saying he had no debit card.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 20, 2025
Somehow, whether Judge wanted to stay all along and bluffed the Yankees into a bigger offer or whether the star was really considering other pitches, Cashman was unfazed by Wednesday morning.
From Washington Post ● Dec. 7, 2022
Graham Paddison, of David Duggleby Auctioneers in Scarborough who are selling the lot, said that Mr Hill "bluffed" his way into the room where the Beatles were talking to the press.
From BBC ● Jun. 23, 2022
It took him a while to get his footing, but the cap’n wasn’t ’bout to be bluffed down.
From "The Journey of Little Charlie" by Christopher Paul Curtis
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As it turned out, the bluffing may have been unnecessary.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 25, 2026
Mehdi, a 58-year-old salesman believes the opposite, saying that "the Americans are bluffing" and that "the negotiations will be 100% successful".
From Barron's ● Feb. 25, 2026
Armed only with a lamp, he managed to scare off the men by bluffing that he had a gun, causing them to flee the scene empty-handed.
From BBC ● Feb. 3, 2026
Beneath all the bluffing lies a determination of credibility.
From Slate ● Nov. 20, 2025
Truly effective nuclear bluffing, however, includes occasional postures of irrationality, a distancing from the horrors of nuclear war.
From "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan
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Vocabulary lists containing bluff
100 Words Every Middle Schooler Should Know
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Tricky Terms for April Fool's Day
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"The Most Dangerous Game" by Richard Connell
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