stand pat
verb
Forms stands pat standing pat stood pat
- verb (intransitive, poker) To play one's hand without drawing any more cards.
- verb (intransitive, blackjack) To stop hitting; to declare one's hand as final. “After getting a hand of 20, the player stood pat.”
- verb (idiomatic) To resist changes.
Synonyms
Etymology
Probably originally a poker phrase, with "pat" equaling "optimal", meaning that drawing more cards is unnecessary. Later the phrase came to be employed in other spheres. "Stand pat" was actively used in U.S. political campaigns of the 1900s, quickly gaining a sense of "being reactionary, resistant to dramatic changes in policy". Moreover, a noun, standpatter, was coined to denote such politicians.
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 — from the Wiktionary entry “stand pat”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details