(a.) Having a broad, flattened front; as, the bluff bows of a ship.
(a.) Rising steeply with a flat or rounded front.
(a.) Surly; churlish; gruff; rough.
(a.) Abrupt; roughly frank; unceremonious; blunt; brusque; as, a bluff answer; a bluff manner of talking; a bluff sea captain.
(n.) A high, steep bank, as by a river or the sea, or beside a ravine or plain; a cliff with a broad face.
(n.) An act of bluffing; an expression of self-confidence for the purpose of intimidation; braggadocio; as, that is only bluff, or a bluff.
(n.) A game at cards; poker.
(v. t.) To deter (an opponent) from taking the risk of betting on his hand of cards, as the bluffer does by betting heavily on his own hand although it may be of less value.
(v. t.) To frighten or deter from accomplishing a purpose by making a show of confidence in one's strength or resources; as, he bluffed me off.
(v. i.) To act as in the game of bluff.
Example Sentences:
(1) I want to follow the west bank of the river south for some 100 miles to a bluff overlooking the river, where Sitting Bull is buried – and then, in the evening, to return to Bismarck.
(2) Despite huge uncertainties over their ability to pay for carbon capture and storage technology, [Peel subsidiary] Ayrshire Power has decided to go ahead with these plans and call Labour's bluff.
(3) Suppose western leaders called Russia’s bluff and insisted on a no-fly zone over Aleppo and a safe haven in northern Syria for refugees.
(4) Salmond accused the Westminster parties of a combination of bullying and bluff.
(5) On August 2, 1991, a neurologist in Pine Bluff (Jefferson County) in central Arkansas notified the Arkansas Department of Health of two patients hospitalized with St. Louis encephalitis (SLE).
(6) The impending publication of the putative nude pictures, a humiliation that turned out to be a bluff, might have pulled Watson down among the lower orders of former child stars, those people who now exist in the public consciousness merely as cautionary tales to scare naughty teenagers: “Look what happened to Bieber today!”; “Did you see Cyrus in that outfit?” Although Watson has put her head above the parapet before, the provocation cited by the hoaxers was the New York speech she gave last Monday promoting the HeForShe campaign and arguing that gender discrimination harms both men and women.
(7) This bombshell will weaken supreme leader Ali Khamenei, Ahmadinejad, chief negotiator Saeed Jalili, and the rest of Tehran's hardliner crew abroad and at home although, as usual, they will try to bluff their way through.
(8) Peggy was – I think (please correct me if not) – watching NBC’s Coogan’s Bluff knock-off McCloud which began in early 1970.
(9) Cameron added that recent warnings from banks such as Lloyds and RBS, and from firms such as BP and Shell proved that the economic and financial risks of independence were not bluff and bluster or bullying.
(10) A steady rise in the yes vote in recent opinion polls also established that voters did not buy "the bluff and bluster" of those opposed to independence.
(11) These places had their bluff called by the Occupy movement.
(12) The Zappa statue was audaciously suggested by local artists in 1992, as a slightly flippant test of their country's newfound democratic freedoms; to their surprise, the authorities called their bluff.
(13) Most of the sites are of the Bluff phase of Late Woodland in the lower Illinois River valley; others are from a nearby, contemporary archaeological phase.
(14) TV election debates: broadcasters call David Cameron's bluff Read more “They’ve chopped and changed formats, blinked under pressure, refused to consult constructively and now are absurdly threatening not to have the prime minister present.
(15) At that point the ECB’s hand may be looking quite poor – if the market doesn’t call their bluff first.
(16) Amid claims in the markets that politicians in Athens were playing a dangerous game of bluff, a potential schism in the monetary union saw borrowing costs for Spain and Italy rise over fears that contagion could spread from Greece through southern Europe.
(17) With the crisis and the payments protection insurance scandals combining to leave the financial services sector mistrusted as never before, there has never been a more opportune moment for calling the industry's bluff.
(18) This time, however, Scotland is calling the cardinal's bluff.
(19) Coren was author of more than 20 satirical books, a familiar face on television from the 1970s onwards - he was team captain on Call my Bluff - and a regular on Radio 4's News Quiz from 1975.
(20) During a career spanning three decades, she has been a regular on shows such as Whose Line Is It Anyway?, Call My Bluff, and QI, as well as fronting the travel programme Excess Baggage.
Buttress
Definition:
(n.) A projecting mass of masonry, used for resisting the thrust of an arch, or for ornament and symmetry.
(n.) Anything which supports or strengthens.
(v. t.) To support with a buttress; to prop; to brace firmly.
Example Sentences:
(1) The treatment of a Smith type-II fracture is a volar buttress plate unless extended comminution is present.
(2) If coastal ice shelves buttressing the west Antarctic ice sheet continue to disintegrate, the sheet could disgorge into the ocean, raising sea levels by several metres in a century.
(3) This ad hoc response to a moment of crisis was buttressed by successive laws that, in order to exclude a Stuart succession, enmeshed monarchy with the Church of England, thus fanning a religious hostility the rest of Europe was already growing beyond.
(4) The “Korea problem” is also connected to China’s own interests in the South China Sea , where Beijing’s expansionism faces off against the US, whose strategic goal is to buttress the power of smaller states in the region.
(5) The shelf procedure provides a buttress of bone for later reconstructive surgery such as cup or total hip arthroplasty.
(6) After previous methods failed, two patients were successfully treated by using a one-stage procedure which included (1) suture closure of the fistula, (2) buttressing the repair with a viable, pedicled, two-rib intercostal-muscle flap, and (3) performing an extensive thoracoplasty with a continuous drip infusion of neomycin.
(7) When management of a perforated peptic ulcer necessitates simple closure, the omentum may not be of adequate quality to buttress such a closure.
(8) A case is presented of fatal coronary embolism of Teflon felt used to buttress sutures in the placement of a Björk-Shiley aortic valve prosthesis.
(9) That explains why Miliband is so keen to buttress them with evidence of his belief that Labour credibility can be built on a philosophically different approach – and with some of the money saved by the cap.
(10) By detrusorrhaphy the submucosal ureteral tunnel is opened, the ureteral meatus is advanced and anchored onto the trigone, and the detrusor buttress of the ureter is closed (-rrhaphy).
(11) Complete exposure of the injured buttresses will facilitate assessment of the exact fracture pattern.
(12) Reconstruction of the noncoronary sinus was achieved by approximating intimal edge with Teflon felt reinforced buttress suture, then the ascending aorta was replaced by a Dacron prosthetic graft.
(13) In the early 80s when Tony Benn made his bid for the deputy leadership, there was a huge trade union movement and peace movement to buttress him if he won.
(14) In 4 patients, sets of cables had been sutured to the myocardium through an anterior thoracotomy, in some instances using Teflon pledgets as buttresses.
(15) Stage 1 begins with the initiation of a floral buttress on the flank of the apical meristem.
(16) Hollande goes to Berlin on Tuesday with the psychological advantage, buttressed by a strong new mandate that has shifted the terms of European politics.
(17) The tarsometatarsal reorientation arthrodesis addresses the deficient anteromedial buttress which is due to the most often concomittent hypermobile first ray.
(18) The most common complication was a fatigue fracture of the plates which, however, only occurred after biomechanically faulty application, without medial buttress of the bone, and in the absence of a cancellous autograft.
(19) Sometimes in severe cases they may demonstrate instability with conventional methods of treatment; thus for adequate stabilization they may need a palatal splint, direct wiring (internal fixation in the buttresses), intermaxillary fixation and cranial suspension.
(20) As there was the relatively high incidence of anastomotic leak occurring at the coronary artery orifice-graft anastomosis with one lane suture, we have circumferentially buttressed the coronary suture line with several pledget-supported mattress suture--direct two lane coronary orifice suture--for reinforcement.