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Bible Dictionaries
Play
King James Dictionary
or PLAY,
1. To use any exercise for pleasure or recreation to do something not as a task or for profit, but for amusement as, to play at cricket.
The people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play. Exodus 32
2. To sport to frolick to frisk.
The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to day,
Had he thy reason, would he skip and play?
3. To toy to act with levity.
4. To trifle to act wantonly and thoughtlessly.
Men are apt to play with their healths and their lives as they do with their clothes.
5. To do something fanciful to give a fanciful turn to as, to play upon words.
6. To make sport,or practice sarcastic merriment.
I would make use of it rather to play upon those I despise,than trifle with those I love.
7. To mock to practice illusion.
Art thou alive,
Or is it fancy plays upon our eyesight?
8. To contend in a game as, to play at cards or dice to play for diversion to play for money.
9. To practice a trick or deception.
His mother played false with a smith.
10. To perform on an instrument of music as, to play on a flute, a violin or a harpsichord.
Play, my friend, and charm the charmer.
11. To move, or to move with alternate dilatation and contraction.
The heart beats, the blood circulates, the lungs play.
12. To operate to act. The engines play against a fire.
13. To move irregularly to wanton.
Ev'n as the waving sedges play with wind.
The setting sun
Plays on their shining arms and burnish'd helmets.
All fame is foreign, but of true desert,
Plays round the head, but comes not to the heart.
14. To act a part on the stage to personate a character.
A lord will hear you play to-night.
15. To represent a standing character.
Courts are theaters where some men play.
16. To act in any particular character as, to play the fool to play the woman to play the man.
17. To move in any manner to move one way and another as any part of a machine.
PLAY, To put in action or motion as, to play cannon or a fire-engine.
1. To use an instrument of music as, to play the flute or the organ.
2. To act a sportive part or character.
Nature here
Wanton'd as in her prime, and play'd at will
Her virgin fancies.
3. To act or perform by representing a character as, to play a comedy to play the part of king Lear.
4. To act to perform as, to play our parts well on the stage of life.
5. To perform in contest for amusement or for a prize as, to play a game at whist.
To play off, to display to show to put in exercise as, to play off tricks.
To play on or upon, to deceive to mock or to trifle with.
1. To give a fanciful turn to.
PLAY, n. Any exercise or series of actions intended for pleasure, amusement or diversion, as at cricket or quoit, or at blind man's buff.
1. Amusement sport frolic gambols.
Two gentle fawns at play.
2. Game gaming practice of contending for victory, for amusement or for a prize, as at dice, cards or billiards.
3. Practice in any contest as sword-play.
He was resolved not to speak distinctly, knowing his best play to be in the dark.
John naturally loved rough play.
4. Action use employment office.
--But justifies the next who comes in play.
5. Practice action manner of acting in contest or negotiation as fair play foul play.
6. 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.
7. Representation or exhibition of a comedy or tragedy as, to be at the play. He attends every play.
8. Performance on an instrument of music.
9. Motion movement, regular or irregular as the play of a wheel or piston.
10. State of agitation or discussion.
Many have been sav'd, and many may,
Who never heard this question brought in play.
11. Room for motion.
The joints are let exactly into one another, that they have no play between them.
12. Liberty of acting room for enlargement or display scope as, to give full play to mirth. Let the genius have free play.
Dictionary of Words from the King James Bible. Public Domain. Copy freely.
Material presented was supplied by Brandon Staggs and was derived from the KJV Dictionary found on his website located at av1611.com.
The unabridged 1828 version of this dictionary in the SwordSearcher Bible Software.
Entry for 'Play'. King James Dictionary. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/kjd/p/play.html.
