rope-a-dope

1. 1.

   a boxing tactic: pretending to be trapped against the ropes while your opponent wears himself out throwing punches

   Broaderboxing

Questions about rope-a-dope

What does rope-a-dope mean?

rope-a-dope means "a boxing tactic: pretending to be trapped against the ropes while your opponent wears himself out throwing punches".

How many syllables are in rope-a-dope?

rope-a-dope has 4 syllables and divides as ro-pe--a--dope under the regular spelling rules. It is not in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, so that comes from how the word is written rather than from a recorded pronunciation, and no stress or phonetic transcription is claimed for it.

Is rope-a-dope a common word?

rope-a-dope is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.