pull at

phrasal verb

pulled at; pulling at; pulls at

1

: to hold onto and pull (something) repeatedly

When she gets nervous, she pulls at her ear.

2

: to breathe in the smoke from (a cigarette, pipe, etc.)

He rocked back and forth, pulling at his pipe.

Examples of pull at in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

An Islander had tried to take a soldier’s musket by grabbing the muzzle, while another had pulled at a sailor’s coat. —Literary Hub, 28 Jan. 2026

The agent sprays Pretti with a chemical irritant and drags him to his knees as Pretti pulls at the backpack of the other bystander, potentially reaching for a water bottle. —Thomas Bordeaux, CNN Money, 25 Jan. 2026

That's because the spin cycle can pull at the buttons causing the threads to loosen. —Melissa Locker, Southern Living, 9 Jan. 2026

Those interactions—particularly with the Milky Way and the neighboring Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) — have pulled at its structure, warping its disk and rearranging its stars and gas. —Kenna Hughes-Castleberry, Space.com, 3 Dec. 2025

Rhymes for pull at

• begat
• bobcat
• chitchat
• doormat
• ducat
• eclat
• format
• hazmat
• muskrat
• nonfat
• polecat
• thereat