patty-cake
Americannoun
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.
She gushes about her nieces, who call her “Aunt Cake,” as in patty-cake.
From Los Angeles Times • Oct. 20, 2022
The dance-fight sequences make the rumble number in “West Side Story” look like a leisurely game of patty-cake.
From New York Times • Sep. 29, 2017
But it’s the irrepressible resilience of her characters, the spontaneous patty-cake between Olimpia and Nena after Orlando brings the girl home, that has made Fornés such a seminal figure in contemporary playwriting.
From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 18, 2017
That rapid-fire, back-and-forth patter — like David Mamet’s — constantly threatens to slip into a manic patty-cake that sounds gratingly artificial.
From Washington Post • Jan. 24, 2017
Hua-hua was sleepy and did not want to play patty-cake or any of our usual games, but we stayed at my Fourth Aunt’s apartment until we heard the footsteps going down the stairs.
From "Red Scarf Girl: A Memoir of the Cultural Revolution" by Ji-li Jiang
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
