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Play   /pleɪ/   Listen
verb
Play  v. t.  
1.
To put in action or motion; as, to play cannon upon a fortification; to play a trump. "First Peace and Silence all disputes control, Then Order plays the soul."
2.
To perform music upon; as, to play the flute or the organ.
3.
To perform, as a piece of music, on an instrument; as, to play a waltz on the violin.
4.
To bring into sportive or wanton action; to exhibit in action; to execute; as, to play tricks. "Nature here Wantoned as in her prime, and played at will Her virgin fancies."
5.
To act or perform (a play); to represent in music action; as, to play a comedy; also, to act in the character of; to represent by acting; to simulate; to behave like; as, to play King Lear; to play the woman. "Thou canst play the rational if thou wilt."
6.
To engage in, or go together with, as a contest for amusement or for a wager or prize; as, to play a game at baseball.
7.
To keep in play, as a hooked fish, in order to land it.
To play hob, to play the part of a mischievous spirit; to work mischief.
To play off, to display; to show; to put in exercise; as, to play off tricks.
To play one's cards, to manage one's means or opportunities; to contrive.
Played out, tired out; exhausted; at the end of one's resources. (Colloq.)


Play  v. i.  (past & past part. played; pres. part. playing)  
1.
To engage in sport or lively recreation; to exercise for the sake of amusement; to frolic; to spot. "As Cannace was playing in her walk." "The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day, Had he thy reason, would he skip and play!" "And some, the darlings of their Lord, Play smiling with the flame and sword."
2.
To act with levity or thoughtlessness; to trifle; to be careless. ""Nay," quod this monk, "I have no lust to pleye."" "Men are apt to play with their healths."
3.
To contend, or take part, in a game; as, to play ball; hence, to gamble; as, he played for heavy stakes.
4.
To perform on an instrument of music; as, to play on a flute. "One that... can play well on an instrument." "Play, my friend, and charm the charmer."
5.
To act; to behave; to practice deception. "His mother played false with a smith."
6.
To move in any manner; especially, to move regularly with alternate or reciprocating motion; to operate; to act; as, the fountain plays. "The heart beats, the blood circulates, the lungs play."
7.
To move gayly; to wanton; to disport. "Even as the waving sedges play with wind." "The setting sun Plays on their shining arms and burnished helmets." "All fame is foreign but of true desert, Plays round the head, but comes not to the heart."
8.
To act on the stage; to personate a character. "A lord will hear your play to-night." "Courts are theaters where some men play."
To play into a person's hands, to act, or to manage matters, to his advantage or benefit.
To play off, to affect; to feign; to practice artifice.
To play upon.
(a)
To make sport of; to deceive. "Art thou alive? Or is it fantasy that plays upon our eyesight."
(b)
To use in a droll manner; to give a droll expression or application to; as, to play upon words.


noun
Play  n.  
1.
Amusement; sport; frolic; gambols.
2.
Any exercise, or series of actions, intended for amusement or diversion; a game. "John naturally loved rough play."
3.
The act or practice of contending for victory, amusement, or a prize, as at dice, cards, or billiards; gaming; as, to lose a fortune in play.
4.
Action; use; employment; exercise; practice; as, fair play; sword play; a play of wit. "The next who comes in play."
5.
A dramatic composition; a comedy or tragedy; a composition in which characters are represented by dialogue and action. "A play ought to be a just image of human nature."
6.
The representation or exhibition of a comedy or tragedy; as, he attends ever play.
7.
Performance on an instrument of music.
8.
Motion; movement, regular or irregular; as, the play of a wheel or piston; hence, also, room for motion; free and easy action. "To give them play, front and rear." "The joints are let exactly into one another, that they have no play between them."
9.
Hence, liberty of acting; room for enlargement or display; scope; as, to give full play to mirth.
Play actor, an actor of dramas.
Play debt, a gambling debt.
Play pleasure, idle amusement. (Obs.)
A play upon words, the use of a word in such a way as to be capable of double meaning; punning.
Play of colors, prismatic variation of colors.
To bring into play, To come into play, to bring or come into use or exercise.
To hold in play, to keep occupied or employed. "I, with two more to help me, Will hold the foe in play."





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Play" Quotes from Famous Books



... for any man to play, Doctor.... I don't quite see how one could ask it of them,"—and after a pause of concentrated thought and many slow smoke-puffs—"What would you say to me?" and all their eyes settled ...
— A Maid of the Silver Sea • John Oxenham
... sensible world comes to one with a reinforced brilliancy and relief—all redness is turned into blood, all water into tears. Hence a wild, convulsed sensuousness in the poetry of the Middle Age, in which the things of nature begin to play a strange delirious part. Of the things of nature the medieval mind had a deep sense; but its sense of them was not objective, no real escape [219] to the world without us. The aspects and motions of nature only reinforced its prevailing mood, and were in conspiracy with one's own ...
— Aesthetic Poetry • Walter Horatio Pater
... words, and me having to cycle this blessed day to Mrs. Montgomery's lecture on the Dadaist Dramatists, and the meringues and the American creams to be made for to-night's Tchekoff Conversazione. Is it not enough for a girl to be destroyed with the play-acting, and the wind like to be in my face the whole way and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 4th, 1920 • Various
... ancestors, does not appear at all to hold here. This fanciful realist, this naive-wistful humorist, this dreamy mystical casuist, crossed by the innocent bohemian, this serious and genial essayist, in whom the deep thought was hidden by the gracious play of wit and phantasy, came, on the father's side, of a stock of what the world regarded as a quiet, ingenious, demure, practical, home-keeping people. In his rich colour, originality, and graceful air, it is almost as though the bloom of japonica came on a rich ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp
... said that once during the performance of a play at his expense, a slave of his appeared upon the stage habited as Dionysus; a tall and handsome youth, and still beardless. The Athenians were charmed with his appearance, and applauded for a long time, at the end of which Nikias rose and said that he did not think it right that one whose body ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch


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