angle-shoot

• angle shoot

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angle-shoot (third-person singular simple present angle-shoots, present participle angle-shooting, simple past and past participle angle-shot)

1. To fire or shoot from an angle.
   • 1957, School Activities - Volumes 29-31, page 294:

     After the bowler has acquired a smooth delivery he is shown how to angle-shoot for spares, the essentials of spot and line bowling, and such new techniques as finger-tip control.

   • 1966, Films and Filming - Volume 13, page 8:

     He recalls, and then surpasses, his visual diversions for 'Can't Buy Me Love' in A Hard Day's Night when he chop-cuts and angle-shoots his four principal comics during their rendiction of 'Everybody Ought to Have a Maid'

2. (poker, slang) To use a trick that is not explicitly prohibited by the rules, but which is used to gain unfair advantage.
   • 2006, Randy Burgess, Ultimate Guide to Poker Tells: Devastate Opponents by Reading Body Language, →ISBN, page 149:

     The floor will rule one way or another; the point isn't so much to win the ruling as to put the spotlight on the offending player so he's less likely to angle-shoot on future hands.

3. (slang, by extension) To bend the rules; to behave in a way that is unethical but not illegal.
   • 1996, Mason Malmuth, Blackjack Essays, →ISBN, page 205:

     I like to think that I used my superior skill to come out on top; I don't like the idea that I had to angle-shoot to take home more money than I came with.

   • 2002, U.S. News & World Report - Volume 131, Issues 19-27, page 116:

     Or perhaps, unlike many firms looking for fast dividends from the disaster, Krispy Kreme didn't try to angle-shoot the tragedy. It hasn't changed its approach to business— which may well have something to do with its success.

angle-shoot (plural angle-shoots)

1. (botany) A side shoot that grows from the main stem stem.
   • 1934, Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh:

     The fact that for the greater part of its length the angle-shoot has the same structure as a normal stem is what would be expected; it does not, in my opinion, prove that the former is not a transformed rhizophore.

2. (slang, poker) Alternative form of angle shot
   • 2010 April 22, Brett Collson, “Slowrolling: Disgraceful or Strategic?”, in Poker News Daily:

     As MacPhee says, “if an angle-shoot is within the rules and plus-EV then do it!”

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