phrase

• Make use of one's influence and contacts to gain an advantage unofficially or unfairly.

  ‘he tried to pull strings with people he knew to avoid being called up’

  More example sentences

  • ‘She did him her best turns later on when she got her influential lovers to pull strings for him.’
  • ‘Chastened by bitter internecine tenant warfare, battle-scarred managers frequently pull strings to ensure that all the baritones live on one side of the building, and all the heldentenors on the other.’
  • ‘I do not know what awaits me there, because we are not a rich family who can contact lawyers and agencies and pull strings and have papers rushed through.’
  • ‘Now this is fine - he has some excellent contacts, knows how to pull strings, and is a fairly reasonable guy.’
  • ‘They view him as, you know, this sort of mastermind who, you know, pulls strings from the shadows and things of that nature.’
  • ‘One interesting character is the morally ambiguous mastermind Mr Haddon, who pulls strings behind the scenes and gives Ellie most of her funding.’
  • ‘He may feel that he's pulling strings, that that he lights a fire here and everyone rushes to that one, and then he lights a fire there and everyone rushes to there.’
  • ‘Either this has not been thought through properly, or someone is pulling strings to ensure a head start at the elections in September 2003.’
  • ‘There must be someone at the centre of a web, pulling strings, yanking cords, tugging ropes and generally causing all their misery and pain or lulling them into dry boredom.’
  • ‘The only magic is councillors pulling strings.’

  Synonyms

  arrange, organize, contrive, sort out, see to, see about