rug-pull

Back formation from pull the rug out from under

• rug pull

• IPA^(key): /ˈrʌɡˌpʊl/

rug-pull (plural rug-pulls)

1. A sudden revelation that completely contradicts the assumptions one has been lead to believe.
   • 1977, The Nation - Volume 224, page 413:

     Perhaps this necessity to be on guard for the next rug-pull is what makes A Footstep of Air proceed in fatiguing seesaws instead of invigorating changes of pace.

   • 2003, David L. Baumer & ‎Julius Carl Poindexter, Legal environment of business in the information age, page 583:

     We thus reject what appears to be L&F's chief grievance: that the "rug-pull" effect conveyed the false message that LYSOL merely appears to clean.

   • 2018 July 25, A. A. Dowd, “Fallout may be the Most Breathlessly Intense Mission: Impossible Adventure Yet”, in The A.V. Club‎, archived from the original on 31 July 2018:

     But part of the movie’s nonstop fun is the way [Christopher] McQuarrie taps back into the genre’s (and this series’) games of subterfuge, misdirection, and indeterminate loyalties, beginning with the fiendishly clever rug-pull of its worst-case-scenario prologue and epitomized by the goofily irresistible sight of characters dramatically ripping off lifelike rubber masks.