play hard to get
to pretend that you are less interested in someone than you really are as a way of making them more interested in you, especially at the start of a romantic relationship:
Why won't you call him back? Are you playing hard to get?
Thesaurus: synonyms and related words
Abstaining and refraining
- abstain
- abstemious
- abstention
- abstinence
- back off
- fast
- forborne
- give
- give (sth) up
- give up sth
- hors de combat
- keep
- keep (sb/sth) out of sth
- refrain
- step back
- stop
- stop short of sth idiom
- swear off sth
- touch
- wouldn't touch sth with a barge pole idiom
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