How to Use shell game in a Sentence

shell game

noun
  • This is more than just a shell game.
    — Gal Beckerman, The Atlantic, 10 Mar. 2026
  • Budget shell games, in other words.
    — The Editorial Board, Oc Register, 21 Oct. 2025
  • Adams walked out of that meeting calling the House plan a shell game.
    — Richard Ruelas, azcentral, 23 Apr. 2018
  • Is Shell just engaged in spin, playing some kind of (ahem) shell game?
    — David Roberts, Vox, 30 Mar. 2018
  • These games include a pet-friendly versions of the shell game, hide and seek and more.
    — Kelli Bender, PEOPLE.com, 5 Apr. 2021
  • For all of its visual beauty and brilliant writing, the movie is a shell game in the end.
    — Ginia Bellafante, New York Times, 5 Mar. 2021
  • Cyrus, a beloved gay icon, was a smart choice and seemed ready to play along with Kenworthy’s shell game.
    — Gil Kaufman, Billboard, 27 Jan. 2026
  • Cristian Benvenuto is convinced the whole thing is a shell game.
    — Winston Ross, Newsweek, 25 May 2015
  • First, there's the shell game where your dog has to find the Pupper dog treat hidden under one of three shells.
    — Amber Smith, Discover Magazine, 23 Oct. 2022
  • The young athletes who have spent lifetimes dreaming of this moment are pawns in a huge financial shell game.
    — Ann Killion, San Francisco Chronicle, 3 Feb. 2022
  • So zookeepers developed a shell game called double-clutching.
    — Jak Wonderly, Smithsonian Magazine, 19 May 2021
  • Many companies try to dodge prosecution by playing a shell game.
    — Ron Hurtibise, sun-sentinel.com, 22 Aug. 2021
  • Life seemed to be some kind of scam, a little shell game, in which every living thing secretly carried the pain of its own loss.
    — Sam Anderson, New York Times, 31 May 2024
  • This is the shell game designed to hide a huge shift in resources to benefit men’s football and basketball.
    — Donna Lopiano, Forbes, 27 Feb. 2025
  • Lineups lately have been something of a shell game to account for pitching matchups, days off and the need to give bench players more work.
    — Phil Thompson, chicagotribune.com, 20 July 2019
  • American farming is, by design and not by nature, an exploitative shell game, run by those wealthy enough to write the rules.
    — Nick Martin, The New Republic, 11 Sep. 2020
  • The Civil War, in his view, was another elaborate shell game.
    — Michael Kazin, The Atlantic, 3 June 2026
  • Expedia played a shell game with your money, wasted your time with useless chatbots and ignored paper trails.
    — Christopher Elliott, Mercury News, 12 Jan. 2026
  • Blockchain is either the most radical invention of the century or a worthless shell game.
    — Gideon Lichfield, Wired, 3 Jan. 2022
  • Blockchain is either the most radical invention of the century or a worthless shell game.
    — Amy Dickinson, Anchorage Daily News, 13 Aug. 2023
  • The leaguewide shell game of sneaking talent onto practice squads is intensified.
    — Andrew Krammer, Star Tribune, 4 Sep. 2020
  • Since last summer, the Justice Department appears to have been playing a clever shell game.
    — Christine Biederman, WIRED, 18 June 2019
  • Without any penalties for failure for first-pass tender acceptance, carriers and shippers have played a shell game on price.
    — Lora Cecere, Forbes, 15 Nov. 2021
  • The Gophers football team’s offense has created a shell game that has been producing more and more points this season.
    — Andy Greder, Twin Cities, 11 Oct. 2019
  • The current practice of shutting some services and shifting those officers to patrols is a shell game that’s not sustainable.
    — Bill Rodriguez and Jim Galvan, Star Tribune, 16 Oct. 2020
  • Enjoy the warped Swarm shell game, treasure Fishback’s performance and join me in waiting to see how the breadth-over-depth approach ages.
    — Daniel Fienberg, The Hollywood Reporter, 15 Mar. 2023
  • The kit itself is appropriate for ages 8 and up and contains 200 tricks including a classic ball-in-cup shell game.
    — Popular Science, 11 May 2020
  • At the Defense Department, officials have played what amounts to a bureaucratic shell game to get money for the wall.
    — W.j. Hennigan, Time, 28 Aug. 2019
  • The money comes from somewhere, a shell game of shady boosters in the background writing checks, money diverted from more noble potential causes.
    — The Indianapolis Star, 3 Oct. 2022
  • His one-of-a-kind decks of cards, shell game equipment, juggling balls, crystal ball, silk pieces to wave over disappearing objects and other tools of his trade had vanished into thin air.
    — Heather Knight, San Francisco Chronicle, 20 Jan. 2018

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

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