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laugh in one's sleeve. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
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English
Pronunciation
Verb
laugh in one's sleeve (third-person singular simple present laughs in one's sleeve, present participle laughing in one's sleeve, simple past and past participle laughed in one's sleeve)
- (US, Canada, idiomatic) to laugh in secret or to oneself, usually gloatingly
1983, James C. H. Shen, “Beginnings of Endings”, in Robert Myers, editor, The U.S. & Free China: How the U.S. Sold Out Its Ally, Washington, D.C.: Acropolis Books Ltd., →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, page 7:Nixon boastfully called the seven days he spent on the Chinese mainland "the week that changed the world"–without, however, specifying whether the change was for the better or for the worse. The way he humbled himself before Mao Tse-tung and Chou En-lai reminded me of the tribute-bearing foreign emissaries of the previous centuries who went to Peking to pay homage at the Chinese Imperial Court. Nixon's hosts must have laughed in their sleeves at his behavior during their meetings.
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