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- yank chain
yank chain
yank someone's chain
Sl. to harass someone; to give someone a hard time. (As if one were a dog wearing a choker collar, on a leash.) Stop yanking my chain! Do you really think you can just yank my chain whenever you want?
yank somebody's chain
also pull somebody's chain to upset someone She knows that playing that music really yanks my chain.
Related vocabulary: push somebody's buttons