mean trick
1
5.4
- noun
- Informal
:
trucazo cruel
- It was a mean trick for him to hide her things just to make her upset.
- play a mean trick
Examples
-
It was all a bloody mean trick.
-
Well, it was a little bit like a mean trick my sister pulled on me one Christmas when we were kids.
Fiction book (1990) -
It's like a mean trick.
-
Kind of a mean trick to play on the professor.
-
That was a mean trick!
-
"Guess!" he insisted, playing the mean trick Emma always played on him.
Fiction book (1999) -
Shoot, honey, I wouldn't do you no mean trick.
-
It was a mean trick.
-
He played a mean trick on us, that's all.
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Pulling that mean trick on your friend will only hurt his feelings.
Synonyms
163
3.9
An action that makes someone believe something not true
53
7.7
A clever trick to deceive someone
27
4.9
To use dishonest ways to cheat people
11
4.9
An unfair action meant to harm or cheat someone
A plan to control people by tricking them
Antonyms
How Cruel
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase 'mean trick' is directly compositional: 'mean' (cruel) qualifies 'trick' (a deceitful act), so the combined meaning of a cruel or hurtful deceit is immediately derivable from the constituents. This adjective+noun pattern is common across languages and standard English usage, so a B1 learner who knows both words would readily understand the expression.
Etymology
Mean trick comes from a simple image: a trick is a sneaky action to fool someone, and mean here shows the action is 'cruel' or 'low'. So a mean trick means a trick done to hurt, embarrass, or deceive someone.