Idiom
dirty pool
Meaning
Foul play; misconduct; underhandedness.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Examples
“That was dirty pool, and you know it.”
“The other team hid our equipment before the match, which was clearly dirty pool.”
“His decision to leak confidential documents to the press during the negotiation was widely condemned as dirty pool.”
Examples
simple
“That was dirty pool, and you know it.”
contextual
“The other team hid our equipment before the match, which was clearly dirty pool.”
complex
“His decision to leak confidential documents to the press during the negotiation was widely condemned as dirty pool.”
Origin
Probably an allusion to failing to follow the rules when playing billiards. Compare not cricket.
Key words
Related idioms
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