loaded dice

English

Etymology

From loaded (“weighted asymmetrically”) + dice.

Noun

loaded dice pl (plural only)

1. (figuratively) An advantage obtained by manipulating rules or insider influence.
   • 1960, Charles Sumner, The Republican Party its origin necessity & permanence, J. A. H. Hasbrouck & Co., page 10:

     Slave states have always won. They have played with loaded dice—loaded with Slavery.

   • 1972, Melville Jean Herskovits, Cultural Relativism: Perspectives in Cultural Pluralism, page 56:

     In fact, the need for a cultural-relativistic point of view has become apparent because of the realization that there is no way to play this game of making judgments across cultures except with loaded dice.

   • 2012, Fred Carach, Forty Years a Speculator: My Discoveries and Insights, Dog Ear, page 53:

     The riverboat gambler’s most intriguing insight on the stock market is that all investors use loaded dice if they only knew it.

1. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see loaded,‎ dice.
   • 1792, The Analytical Review, volume 14, page 409:

     We here behold an impudent unlettered miscreant, wheedling himself into the acquaintance of the young and unexperienced, taking advantage of the hour of intoxication, to introduce loaded dice, and then enforcing his pretended claim by means of a loaded pistol.

Synonyms

• (literal): fullam (singular), gourd (singular), langret (singular), uphills

Translations

loaded dice