inside straight

American

noun

Poker. a set of four cards, as the five, seven, eight, and nine, requiring one card of a denomination next above or below the second or third ranking cards of the set to make a straight.

idioms

draw to an inside straight, to build up hopes for something that has little or no chance of happening.

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.

See Examples For:

inside straight

It’s long odds — it’s like going for an inside straight.

From Seattle Times ● Sep. 23, 2023

I’ve tried gently explaining, I’ve tried consequences: We go inside straight away.

From Slate ● May 22, 2020

“If we pull an inside straight we could get out of here tonight. But I don’t think that’s likely,” House Speaker Shap Smith, D-Morristown, said Friday afternoon.

From Washington Times ● May 6, 2016

In other words, he would have to pull an inside straight.

From Washington Post ● Mar. 31, 2016

Its branch was pulled up and pointed inside straight at the fire; the signal given, “Down with number two!” and a hiss was followed by volumes of steam.

From Fighting the Flames by R. M. (Robert Michael) Ballantyne

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023