patsy
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
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As Warren Buffett wrote, “If you’ve been playing poker for half an hour and you still don’t know who the patsy is, you’re the patsy.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 26, 2026
Three days later, he recanted that confession and spent the rest of his life professing his innocence, claiming that he was made a patsy for the real assassin, a man he called “Raoul.”
From Slate ● Dec. 1, 2025
And I don’t see the party as playing the patsy, either.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 16, 2025
That’s the one in which Arthur’s trusted patsy, Patsy, slaps coconut halves together so the deluded king can pretend he has a horse.
From New York Times ● Nov. 16, 2023
Without even perfunctory regrets at the man’s passing, he accused Luthuli of being a patsy of the white man, mainly on the grounds that the chief had accepted the Nobel Peace Prize.
From "Long Walk to Freedom" by Nelson Mandela
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As Rhodes found out, however, it's not so easy to pawn your misdeeds off on patsies.
From Salon ● Dec. 12, 2022
He’s thunked the thinkpiece, and it’s up to the patsies to enact it.
From The Guardian ● Sep. 27, 2019
“We all know life’s just a joke,” he squawks, “but those patsies think it has meaning! They’ll never get the gag, not even when they’re hit by the punch line. Lay it on! Bigly!”
From The New Yorker ● Jul. 18, 2019
“Everyone knows” that the Cubs’ record is legitimate because they have supposedly played a normal schedule while the Nats, we’ve told ourselves, have played patsies.
From Washington Post ● May 5, 2016
"But that assumption—a whole continent of patsies —simply didn't make sense."
From "1491" by Charles C. Mann
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