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Glite Dictionary
🪣 A bag of sand 🕵️ To deceive 🥊 To attack unfairly 🏠 To protect with bags
to sandbag

to sandbag

3 7.5
To pretend to be weaker to get an advantage later
  • verb
  • /ˈsændˌbæɡ/
  • Informal
translation icon : fingir incompetencia
  • All he can see is a lawyer who misappropriated client funds that were due to the government in forfeiture; a lawyer who tried to sandbag his client in ex parte communication with a federal judge to better his own personal interests; a lawyer who lied to judges and other lawyers (the referee's written opinion uses the word "lied" four times).

If they felt like I got slighted, I got gypped, I got sandbagged or or maybe just, you know, I just feel like this person got more and I got less.

Examples

  • The coach warned his team not to sandbag their abilities in front of the scouts.

  • The last time I let a trainer sandbag my expectations about the return to competition of a top horse was in the fall of 2000, when Neil Drysdale all but said Fusiachi Pegasus would be lucky not to need a cab ride from the quarter pole to get through his late-season comeback in the Jerome at Belmont Park, and I believed every word.

    Blog text (18)

  • Listen, you got to sandbag your first parole hearing, because...

    Let's Go to Prison (2006)

  • What gives you the right to come here... ...sandbag me with my past after I've paid my debt to society?

    The Tailor of Panama (2001)

  • And it turned that team into a very hard-boiled, tough bunch that learned to sandbag and play smart almost every minute of every game.

    Blog text (24)

  • So we don't really want to sandbag our cash cow S curve of Facebook ads with the metaverse.

  • Not too many teams will be able to bring 6-7 perimeter players the way MSU did, but there will be some, and those will be games when he may have to sandbag, as he did against MSU.

    Blog text (24)

  • I gather I'm supposed to be worried that Bill Clinton's convention speech, which the Obama campaign hasn't been allowed to vet, will somehow sandbag the president's campaign.

    Blog text (29)

  • Simon Cowell is furious at NBC for trying to sandbag next week's premiere of "X Factor" by adding a Wednesday installment of "The Voice," declaring, "This is a cynical, cold-hearted, unprofessional way of doing business."

    Blog text (3)

  • During the negotiation, he tried to sandbag the other party by downplaying his company's profits.

Synonyms

to railroad
vsto sandbag
  • Informal
22 7.0

To force someone to do something quickly and unfairly

uses trickery or subtle pressure rather than overt quick coercion
to kick someone when they are down
vsto sandbag
  • Informal
1 6.9

To treat someone badly when they already have problems

pressures or tricks someone, often regardless of their vulnerability
to dragoon
vsto sandbag
  • NSFW
1 9.7

To force someone to do something by threats or strong pressure

relies on deception or downplaying abilities instead of open threats

How Deceptive

to sandbag
  • Informal
3 7.5
to mislead
87 3.9

Surface Forms

sandbag infinitive
sandbagged past
sandbagged past participle
sandbagging present participle
sandbags third person singular

Etymology

Sandbag as a verb meaning to hit or attack comes from the old action of striking someone with a hidden 'sandbag', a heavy soft sack used as a surprise weapon. That's why to be sandbagged is to be attacked or treated unfairly, often by surprise.