English Idiom – Poker face.
Showing no emotion or reaction, so no one can tell what you’re really thinking or feeling. If someone has a poker face, they’re hiding their true feelings behind a blank, unreadable expression.
The phrase comes straight from the card table. Poker itself has only been called by that name since the 1830s, and it didn’t take long for players to work out that hiding your reaction mattered just as much as the cards in your hand. One of the earliest examples in print is from 1874: “A good Poker-face, one that will not betray the nature of a hand by change of countenance, is a valuable possession.” A player with a good poker face gave nothing away — win or lose, bluffing or not, their expression stayed exactly the same.
(You might recognise the dogs above — that’s Cassius Marcellus Coolidge’s 1894 painting Poker Game, the original entry in his famous “Dogs Playing Poker” series. Even a painted Saint Bernard knows how to keep a straight face.)
The idiom spread well beyond the card table long ago, and it got another huge boost in 2008 when Lady Gaga released her single “Poker Face” – one of the best-selling singles of all time, and proof that a 19th-century card-table phrase can still top the charts.
It’s one of several English expressions poker has given us – see our Poker Vocabulary page for more, including “call someone’s bluff” and “an ace up their sleeve.”
A poker face is sometimes confused with another classic English idiom, keep a stiff upper lip — both are about hiding how you really feel, but they’re not quite the same. A poker face is about giving nothing away in a single moment, so nobody can read your reaction or guess what’s going on in your head — useful at a card table or in any tense negotiation. A stiff upper lip is broader and more British: staying calm and composed through hardship or bad news over time, rather than concealing one specific reaction.
More idioms from the poker table: Call Someone’s Bluff, An Ace Up Your Sleeve and Pass the Buck.
Example:
- “She took a bite of the “mild” salsa, kept a perfect poker face, and then silently downed an entire jug of milk.”
Learn More
Look it upPoker Face: Origin, History, and Meaning – Merriam-Webstermerriam-webster.comWhat is an idiom?
An idiom is a word or phrase that is not taken literally. An idiom is an expression that cannot be understood from the meanings of its individual words, but has a separate meaning of its own.
Frequently Asked Questions
It means showing no emotion or reaction, so no one can tell what you’re really thinking or feeling — hiding your true feelings behind a blank expression.
It comes from the card game poker, where keeping a blank expression stopped opponents guessing whether you were bluffing. One of the earliest examples in print is from 1874.
No — today it’s used for hiding any kind of reaction, from a tense meeting to a surprise party, not just at the poker table.
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