the.com/bluff
A poker face is just confidence wearing a costume nobody asked to remove.
means To bluff is to deceive someone by projecting confidence or making a bold claim you can't actually back up — or, as a noun, a steep cliff or headland with a broad, flat face.
from Two meanings braided into one word. The 'steep cliff' sense came from Dutch or Low German nautical talk — bluffs were the blunt, broad bows of ships and, by extension, anything broad-faced and steep, like a coastal headland. The 'deceive' sense arrived later through American card tables: it's likely from Dutch bluffen or verbluffen, 'to brag, to bluster, to baffle.' Both share a flavor of broad, flat, in-your-face boldness — which fits a game built on staring someone down.
- steep cliff
- A bluff is also a high, broad headland or riverbank
- call it
- Naming the lie ends its power instantly
- war tactic
- Patton built fake armies to bluff Hitler's generals
- animal kingdom
- Pufferfish bluff predators by inflating into spiky balloons
- word origin
- From Dutch sailors meaning broad and flat
mount bluff arkansas — 883-foot prominent hill in lawrence county, arkansas, the highest point in the state's ozark region
bluff city tennessee — city in lauderdale county, tennessee, founded 1860 along the mississippi river
council bluffs iowa — city of 62,000+ in pottawattamie county, iowa, founded 1851 as major missouri river settlement