pull strings | Idiomator

Meaning: (intransitive,idiomatic)Tomanipulatea situation, especially by askingfavoursof others; to use one'sinfluencewith others to attain a desiredgoal.He has the job not because of talent, but because his dadpulled stringswith the boss.; (intransitive,idiomatic,often with“the”or a possessive adjective (such as“his”) before“strings”,pull one's strings)Tocontrolaperson,organization, orsituationby operatingbehind the scenes, as apuppeteercontrols amarionette.We know whopulls the stringsaround here.1986, “Master of Puppets”, inMetallica(music),Master of Puppets:Master of Puppets, I'mpulling your strings1992April 3, Richard Berke, “The 1992 Campaign: Political Memo”, inNew York Times, retrieved18 July 2010:Mr. Brown is touchy about accusations that he is a packaged candidate, and bristles at the suggestion that Mr. Caddellpulls his strings.2003July 7, Michael Elliottet al., “The War That Never Ends”, inTime:"It may have begun that way," says a senior Pentagon official, "but as these attacks grow more numerous, you get the sense that there's someonepulling the stringsat a higher level."2011September 29, Jon Smith, “Tottenham 3 - 1 Shamrock Rovers”, inBBC Sport‎[1]:But with the lively Dos Santospulling the stringsbehind strikers Pavlyuchenko and Defoe, Spurs controlled the first half without finding the breakthrough their dominance deserved.2020July 29, Paul Clifton, “Rail nationalisation moves a step closer”, inRail, page 8:"The DfT ispulling all the strings. It is making every decision. It is telling companies what they can and cannot spend, right down to very small amounts of money. That's the reason they will declare the train operators to be under public control."

Examples:

EN: They can't fight, and they ain't got the dough to pull strings, understand?
ES: Ellos no pueden pelear. Y están sometidos a estos tipos.
EN: I know. I had to pull strings.
ES: - Debí mover unos hilos.
EN: I was getting it through a guy who could pull strings.
ES: Se lo han dado a un enchufado.
EN: If we want, we can all find someone to pull strings for us
ES: -Es natural. -Claro. No nos haga reír.
EN: We know how to pull strings.
ES: Sabemos bien cómo mover hilos.
EN: She'll pull strings for you later on. Sure.
ES: Luego moverá los hilos por ti.
EN: If I'm not making too much mistakes next year, maybe I'll have the right to use orange, but somone has to pull strings for me.
ES: Y si no hago muchos borrones, el año que viene puede que pase al naranja o al índigo, pero hay que tener contactos.
EN: You know all the big shots... senators, the State Department... Dr. Kissinger. You can pull strings.
ES: Ud. conoce gente importante,... senadores, el Departamento de Estado... el Dr. Kissinger, usted tiene conexiones.
EN: Leszek was to pull strings in the Health Department, but...
ES: Leszek también iba a llamar, pero no sé si consiguió algo.
EN: Baldrick, I'll, I'll send him a telegram and he'll pull strings and scratch backs and fiddle with knobs, and get the captain off! Hurray!
ES: ¡Baldrick, le mandaré un telegrama y él moverá hilos, lamerá culos, hará triquiñuelas y liberará al Capitán!
EN: You took them to Frank Arnold so he could pull strings at the D.C.F.S.
ES: Se las llevaste a Frank Arnold para que presionara a los de Minoridad.
EN: I don't like it when people pull strings.
ES: No me gusta que la gente mueva los hilos.
EN: Nobody else could pull strings like that.
ES: Nadie podría mover resortes así.
EN: I had to pull strings to get the case.
ES: Recurrí a mis contactos para conseguir el caso.
EN: You pull strings all the time.
ES: Usted retira sentencias todo el tiempo.

Note: the examples for non latin scripts have a high likelihood of mistakes, we do not own any of this data and it is sourced from Wiktionary, the NLLB database and Opensubtitles. Please help us improve this by contributing correct examples. We will be working to fix this issue over time however it is a bigger issue due to the the difficulties in dealing with non latin scripts and grammatical structures(non-romantic/european languages have lower resources as well ).