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Synonyms

throw a curve

Idioms  

  1. Surprise or outwit someone, as in They threw me a curve when they said that our department would be combined with yours. This colloquial term comes from baseball, where a pitcher tries to fool the batter by using a curve ball, which is thrown with sufficient spin to make it veer from its expected path. The term was transferred to other kinds of surprise, not necessarily unpleasant, in the mid-1900s.

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.

Surely the Fed won't throw a curve ball later on Wednesday, will it?

From Reuters • May 2, 2023

And sometimes Mr. Market can just throw a curve.

From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 13, 2020

Still, the Oscars can always throw a curve or two if the mood strikes it.

From The Guardian • Feb. 9, 2020

Leavy invited Koufax to her son’s bar mitzvah in Washington, and she showed me a photo of the legendary left-hander demonstrating how to throw a curve to a gaggle of 13-year-old boys.

From Washington Post • Apr. 25, 2019

And there was a pitcher there who looked like the pictures of Edgar Allan Poe, and he could throw a curve clear around the batter right into the catcher's hand.

From Mitch Miller by Sloan, John

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.