PLAYING Synonyms: 170 Similar and Opposite Words

playing

verb

present participle of play

as in recreating

to engage in activity for amusement told her son that he needed some time to run and play in the yard after his hard work

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Antonyms & Near Antonyms

as in performing

to present a portrayal or performance of played Hamlet in the campus production of the classic

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as in mocking

to pretend to be (what one is not) in appearance or behavior stop playing the innocent, because I know that you were behind that prank

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as in lounging

to spend time in aimless activity just played around while we waited for the bus to arrive

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Antonyms & Near Antonyms

as in managing

to deal with (something) usually skillfully or efficiently this is how we're going to play the situation

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as in putting

to risk (something) on the outcome of an uncertain event figuring that she had little to lose, she played her last few bucks on the state lottery

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Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Recent Examples of playing Bailey, for comparison, has a Fielding Run Value of +4 despite playing significantly more innings. — Justice Delos Santos, Mercury News, 12 Aug. 2026 Then again for a referee assessor on March 14, 2012, while South Korea was playing Qatar in another Olympic qualifier. — Jessie Yeung, CNN Money, 12 Aug. 2026 Slapping and/or being slapped was one of Oliver’s handful of requests for his soap opera appearance, along with playing a character with a ridiculous name, and wearing an equally ridiculous wig. — Jon Blistein, Rolling Stone, 11 Aug. 2026 Hopkins kept playing, and even wrote little ditties on staff paper. — Tim Greiving, Los Angeles Times, 11 Aug. 2026 Users appear to be fed up with feeling like the burden of that distinction should come from them when AI companies are playing such a vital role in pumping out low quality work en masse. — Beatrice Nolan, Fortune, 11 Aug. 2026 Davis shot to fame in The Office, playing the receptionist at paper merchant Wernham Hogg. — Jake Kanter, Deadline, 11 Aug. 2026 Carys made her professional stage debut in June, playing Nina in Anton Chekhov’s tragicomedy The Seagull in Brooklyn. — Adam England, PEOPLE, 4 Aug. 2026 Alice now began playing and recording her own compositions with a handful of open-minded players and eventually racked up twelve nonpareil albums. — Ian Penman, Harpers Magazine, 4 Aug. 2026

Recent Examples of Synonyms for playing

Verb

What began as a more faithful attempt at recreating Shakespearean verse gradually evolved as the team tried to figure out how to make something that spoke to then-contemporary anxieties.

— Christian Zilko, IndieWire, 8 Aug. 2026
The Minecraft video game is an exceedingly popular title amongst kids of all ages, and the card game does a great job of recreating the video game experience.

— BestReviews, Mercury News, 7 Aug. 2026

Definition of recreating

Verb

This compilation, led by contributing editor Ardian Wibisono and contributor Yessar Rosendar, shines a light on top-performing companies with sales above $10 million and below $1 billion.

— Naazneen Karmali, Forbes.com, 7 Aug. 2026
The hard drive alone contained nearly 500 gigabytes of files and thousands of explicit videos and images of children, including one roughly nine-minute video of a toddler performing oral sex on a grown man, court documents show.

— Colin Mixson, New York Daily News, 6 Aug. 2026

Definition of performing

Verb

The Raiders are managing a knee ailment that caused McCoy to drop to the fourth round in April’s NFL Draft.

— Sam Warren, New York Times, 7 Aug. 2026
Katsis was adept at managing major live acts, overseeing rollouts like Backstreet Boys’ Into the Millennium Tour and helping morph Korn and Limp Bizkit into perennial arena acts.

— Ethan Millman, HollywoodReporter, 6 Aug. 2026

Definition of managing

Verb

Blanchard says putting guardsmen in those relatively safe areas allows local police to concentrate more officers in parts of the city where crime is higher.

— Steven Beynon, ABC News, 11 Aug. 2026
That lets Nvidia expand its customers' buying power without putting every project on its own balance sheet.

— Robert J. Szczerba, Forbes.com, 11 Aug. 2026

Definition of putting

Verb

The formula is one of those shampoos formulated for a really great wash—delivering moisture and smoothing without toying too far into volumizing, densifying, or hair growth.

— Ellie Davis, Vogue, 25 June 2026
The age-gap romance is one that Statsky said the writers have been toying around with for quite some time.

— Julia Moore, PEOPLE, 3 Apr. 2026

Definition of toying

Verb

As the Korean Peninsula swelters through a heat wave, North Korean state media has touted everything from dog-meat soup to chicken broth as ways to cope, while portraying Kim Jong Un as a leader who endures harsh conditions alongside his people.

— Reuters, NBC news, 7 Aug. 2026
Hyde-Smith, first appointed and then elected in 2018, is using a familiar playbook of portraying her Democratic opponent as too liberal for Mississippi.

— ABC News, ABC News, 7 Aug. 2026