as in ruse
a clever often underhanded means to achieve an end
The seemingly benign questioning was all just a gambit to get them to fess up to their wrongdoing.
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Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of gambit
In Bronstein’s riskiest formal gambit, the child’s face is carefully hidden from view, in every shot except one.
—
Justin Chang, New Yorker, 9 Oct. 2025
Her gambit works, and the season ends with Macy telling Franks that there's insufficient evidence to pursue the case.
—Randall Colburn, Entertainment Weekly, 5 Oct. 2025
The all-or-nothing moonshot pay plan was a gambit so risky even Axon Enterprise CEO Rick Smith’s wife was against it.
—Amanda Gerut, Fortune, 5 Oct. 2025
One programming gambit that captures more attention in the current era is news commentary and partisan presentation.
—Brian Steinberg, Variety, 3 Oct. 2025
See All Example Sentences for gambit
Justin Chang, New Yorker, 9 Oct. 2025
Her gambit works, and the season ends with Macy telling Franks that there's insufficient evidence to pursue the case.
—Randall Colburn, Entertainment Weekly, 5 Oct. 2025
The all-or-nothing moonshot pay plan was a gambit so risky even Axon Enterprise CEO Rick Smith’s wife was against it.
—Amanda Gerut, Fortune, 5 Oct. 2025
One programming gambit that captures more attention in the current era is news commentary and partisan presentation.
—Brian Steinberg, Variety, 3 Oct. 2025
See All Example Sentences for gambit
Recent Examples of Synonyms for gambit
Noun
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The New York Colored American reported that some offers of short-term work for Black men — moving livestock to or from Kentucky, for example — were ruses that ended with kidnappings.—
Equal Justice Initiative,
USA Today,
6 Nov. 2025
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Odysseus, the Ithacan warrior who is as celebrated for craftiness as Achilles is for brute strength, devises a clever ruse in which the Greeks place a giant wooden horse outside Troy’s walls and pretend to sail away.—
Elizabeth D. Samet,
Foreign Affairs,
29 Oct. 2025
Noun
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Cherki is a dying breed of player, particularly now he’s been transferred to a Premier League which has moved away from off-the-cuff dribblers and towards set-play schemes.—
Jordan Campbell,
New York Times,
8 Nov. 2025
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Another worker operates the machine’s main controller, using a programming scheme for 3D printers called G-code to tell the printer what to build and how to build it.—
Jake Goodrick,
Sacbee.com,
8 Nov. 2025
Noun
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Dom tried his usual tricks, such as leaving the match to get counted out, but Cena stopped him and brought him back to the ring.—
Matthew Couden,
MSNBC Newsweek,
11 Nov. 2025
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And the action ranges from dueling card tricks to the kind of honest-to-God fights that merely serve to remind us that balletic action films really are magic tricks.—
Owen Gleiberman,
Variety,
11 Nov. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Gambit.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/gambit. Accessed 18 Nov. 2025.
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