How to Use three-card monte in a Sentence

three-card monte

noun
Definition of three-card montenext
Synonyms for three-card montenext
  • Just like in three-card monte, everyone wins except the mark.
    — Robert Pearl, Forbes, 1 Mar. 2021
  • Like three-card monte, or jazz, the play — and, at its best, Kenny Leon’s direction of it — moves too fast for analysis.
    — Jesse Green, New York Times, 20 Oct. 2022
  • At intermission, the audience has just learned that Lincoln, who’s vowed to get out of the three-card monte game for good, is ready to get back into it after all.
    — Rebecca Milzoff, Billboard, 18 Nov. 2022
  • New Orleans watched for months as the top three candidates for mayor shuffled to the lead in poll after poll like a game of three-card Monte, deceiving anyone who thought a favorite would emerge.
    — Richard Rainey, NOLA.com, 17 Oct. 2017
  • In the wide-open world of grifts and schemes, an overinflated basketball may not rank with identity theft, Facebook come-ons from a Nigerian prince or even a hurried game of three-card monte.
    — Dan Barry, New York Times, 18 Feb. 2023
  • His hands move quickly, rearranging the clips as deftly as a three-card monte dealer manipulates his cards.
    — Steve Nadis, Discover Magazine, 10 Feb. 2020
  • Crime plummeted, corporate profits soared, and three-card monte dealers in Times Square gave way to Disney characters.
    — Devlin Barrett, Washington Post, 16 Sep. 2022
  • And now, 40-odd years later, their achievements are under assault from a gaggle of lightweights and a president-elect whose only apparent political skill is the equivalent of a three-card monte game on the E train.
    — Charles P. Pierce, Esquire, 17 Jan. 2017
  • In depicting three-card monte Parks is also depicting capitalism, the über-hustle.
    — Jesse Green, New York Times, 20 Oct. 2022
  • Lincoln supports them with a gig as an Abraham Lincoln impersonator, and Booth spends his days shoplifting, aggressively trying to woo an ex and planning his debut as a master of three-card monte.
    — Maya Phillips, New York Times, 14 Jan. 2023

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'three-card monte.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Last Updated: