sandbag

A sturdy sack filled with sand, generally used in large numbers to make defensive walls against flooding, bullets, or shrapnel.

A small bag filled with sand and used as a cudgel.

An engraver's leather cushion, etc.

A deceptive play whereby a player with a strong hand bets weakly or passively.

To construct a barrier of sandbags (around).

We sandbagged the basement windows against the floodwaters.

The height “49 feet” became a mantra, as volunteers worked for weeks sandbagging and building to match that height.

To strike someone with a sandbag or other object to disable or render unconscious.

To conceal or misrepresent one's true position, potential, or intent in order to gain an advantage; (originally poker) to pretend to have a weak hand, as a strategy.

Some felt that Roberts was sandbagging, because his mastery of the 250s wasn't really showing in practice or the heat.

The sandbagging manager is similarly deceptive. He has mastered the art of seeming harmless and without power, but in reality he carries far more authority and clout than one would be led to believe.

To blindside; to deceive; to undermine.

“Sandbagged” was used by George Bush in response to the charges of stiffing. “We feel we were sandbagged,” he said, repeating the slang verb used first by his New Hampshire campaign manager. Concurrently, Joe Scott wrote in his newsletter, “The Political Animal,” that Governor Jerry Brown was “sandbagging Kennedy's surge.”

The Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg has allowed himself to be sandbagged by his Tory partners in his otherwise laudable attempt to introduce a fairer electoral system, probably losing a once-in-a-generation opportunity for electoral reform.

To premake dishes (prepare them in advance) (intransitive); to premake (dishes) (transitive).