as in blunt
being or characterized by direct, brief, and potentially rude speech or manner
he's a bluff but good-hearted teacher
Synonyms & Similar Words
Relevance
Antonyms & Near Antonyms
1
as in to fool
to cause to believe what is untrue
I bluffed the interviewer into believing that I could really speak French and thus would be the perfect person to serve in the newspaper's Paris bureau
Synonyms & Similar Words
Antonyms & Near Antonyms
2
as in to pretend
to present a false appearance of
the basketball player bluffed a shot, then passed instead
Synonyms & Similar Words
Example Sentences
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to
show current usage.
Read More
Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors.
Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of bluff
Heidi Blake, The New Yorker, 16 Oct. 2023
Though the Explorer majors much more on practicality, somehow Ford has managed to turn a fairly bluff front-end styling and generally boxy silhouette familiar to properly sensible family SUV into an attractive design.
—WIRED, 21 Mar. 2023
Rohini Subrahmanyam, Scientific American, 22 Apr. 2025
Signs along the trail direct visitors where to get the best views while keeping a safe distance from the nest, which is located in Orangevale along the bluffs above the north shore of the lake.
—Hector Amezcua, Sacbee.com, 13 Apr. 2025
Tyler Pager, New York Times, 10 Apr. 2025
The high reciprocal tariffs caught investors, who thought perhaps Trump was bluffing, off guard.
—Medora Lee, USA Today, 4 Apr. 2025
See All Example Sentences for bluff
Adjective
One day in 2010, an e-mail from Steve Wentzel, the Zimbabwean tycoon, arrived in the in-box of one of South Pole’s founders—a tall, bluff German man named Christian Dannecker.
—Heidi Blake, The New Yorker, 16 Oct. 2023
Though the Explorer majors much more on practicality, somehow Ford has managed to turn a fairly bluff front-end styling and generally boxy silhouette familiar to properly sensible family SUV into an attractive design.
—WIRED, 21 Mar. 2023
Noun
These vehement vibrations could also be a bluff; some spiders make similar moves.
—Rohini Subrahmanyam, Scientific American, 22 Apr. 2025
Signs along the trail direct visitors where to get the best views while keeping a safe distance from the nest, which is located in Orangevale along the bluffs above the north shore of the lake.
—Hector Amezcua, Sacbee.com, 13 Apr. 2025
Verb
Investors, Wall Street executives and major donors convinced themselves either that Mr. Trump was bluffing, or would be talked out of his most aggressive tariff proposals.
—Tyler Pager, New York Times, 10 Apr. 2025
The high reciprocal tariffs caught investors, who thought perhaps Trump was bluffing, off guard.
—Medora Lee, USA Today, 4 Apr. 2025
See All Example Sentences for bluff
Recent Examples of Synonyms for bluff
Adjective
-
Her brand features blunt honesty and humor, as well as fashion, beauty, and lifestyle tips.—
Maureen Lee Lenker,
EW.com,
22 May 2025
-
City’s video tribute was a tear-jerker, and less hardy characters than De Bruyne — nicknamed ‘the tumble dryer’ due to his dry (and blunt) approach — would surely have cracked and let the tears roll.—
Sam Lee,
New York Times,
21 May 2025
Noun
-
Pigeons also adapted in response to human development, nesting on skyscrapers instead of on cliff faces and expanding their range alongside people.—
Sarah Kuta,
Smithsonian Magazine,
27 May 2025
-
Over the franchise's 30-year span, Cruise has done everything from dangling from a wire in Mission: Impossible to motorcycling off a cliff in Mission Impossible — Dead Reckoning Part One.—
Skyler Trepel,
People.com,
25 May 2025
Verb
-
Prosecco may be Italy’s most joyful export—bubbly, bright, and effortlessly charming—but don’t let its easygoing nature fool you.—
Emily Price,
Forbes.com,
24 May 2025
-
Don't let his three Emmy nominations and his more than 10 million Instagram followers fool you, Pedro Pascal is a man of the people.—
Anthony Robledo,
USA Today,
23 May 2025
Verb
-
That old man was Trump—who had just been hospitalized with COVID-19, but was pretending that everything was fine—and yet the column was about America’s gerontocracy as a whole, and what Smith suggested was an unsustainable media omertà around it.—
Jon Allsop,
New Yorker,
23 May 2025
-
That’s the point of him; as the Mission: Impossible franchise’s secret agent extraordinaire, Hunt can pretend to be anyone, accomplish basically any physical task, and uncover conspiracies with aplomb.—
David Sims,
The Atlantic,
23 May 2025
Adjective
-
Wallen's album comes out months after his abrupt exit from Saturday Night Live in March — which came five years after his controversial initial SNL appearance.—
Marina Watts,
People.com,
16 May 2025
-
And that’s before considering Andrew Witty’s abrupt exit announced just this week.—
Seth Joseph,
Forbes.com,
16 May 2025
Noun
-
The rim is a 1,200-foot-tall escarpment that rises dramatically above a broad valley, giving you the perfect perch for spotting the show.—
Graham Averill,
Outside Online,
3 Mar. 2025
-
The stately Fairmont Le Château Frontenac is a ubiquitous presence in Quebec City, always peering down on visitors from its highpoint on the Cap Diamant escarpment.—
Vjosa Isai,
New York Times,
23 Jan. 2025
Verb
-
Their goal is to trick people into sharing their Medicare or Social Security number.—
Hugh Cameron,
MSNBC Newsweek,
19 May 2025
-
Life at the house seems more entertaining, but is that just a foolish fantasy designed to trick us into thinking that there is safe harbor somewhere?—
Hanna Rosin,
The Atlantic,
19 May 2025
Verb
-
Resilience Testing Through Chaos Engineering A compelling example of living intelligence in cloud and DevOps is Netflix’s Chaos Engineering platform, which simulates real-world failures to proactively test system resilience.—
Expert Panel®,
Forbes.com,
19 May 2025
-
But Cadillac couldn’t simulate certain tests with the quarter chassis.—
Luke Smith,
New York Times,
14 May 2025
Cite this Entry
“Bluff.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/bluff. Accessed 2 Jun. 2025.
Copy CitationLove words? Need even more definitions?
Merriam-Webster unabridged
Share