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playing
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Playing

Play \Play\, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Played; p. pr. & vb. n. Playing.] [OE. pleien, AS. plegian, plegan, to play, akin to plega play, game, quick motion, and probably to OS. plegan to promise, pledge, D. plegen to care for, attend to, be wont, G. pflegen; of unknown origin. [root]28. Cf. Plight, n.]

  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.
    --Chaucer.

    The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day, Had he thy reason, would he skip and play!
    --Pope.

    And some, the darlings of their Lord, Play smiling with the flame and sword.
    --Keble.

  2. To act with levity or thoughtlessness; to trifle; to be careless.

    ``Nay,'' quod this monk, ``I have no lust to pleye.''
    --Chaucer.

    Men are apt to play with their healths.
    --Sir W. Temple.

  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.
    --Ezek. xxxiii. 32.

    Play, my friend, and charm the charmer.
    --Granville.

  5. To act; to behave; to practice deception.

    His mother played false with a smith.
    --Shak.

  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.
    --Cheyne.

  7. To move gayly; to wanton; to disport.

    Even as the waving sedges play with wind.
    --Shak.

    The setting sun Plays on their shining arms and burnished helmets.
    --Addison.

    All fame is foreign but of true desert, Plays round the head, but comes not to the heart.
    --Pope.

  8. To act on the stage; to personate a character. A lord will hear your play to-night. --Shak. Courts are theaters where some men play. --Donne. 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.

    1. To make sport of; to deceive.

      Art thou alive? Or is it fantasy that plays upon our eyesight.
      --Shak.

    2. To use in a droll manner; to give a droll expression or application to; as, to play upon words.

Playing

Playing \Play"ing\,

  1. & v

  2. n. of Play.

    Playing cards. See under Card.

Wiktionary
playing

n. (context gerund of play English) An occasion on which something, such as a song or show, is played. vb. (present participle of play English)

WordNet
playing
  1. n. the act of playing a musical instrument

  2. the action of taking part in a game or sport or other recreation

  3. the performance of a part or role in a drama [syn: acting, playacting, performing]

Wikipedia
Playing (album)

Playing is a live album by jazz quartet Old and New Dreams. It features trumpeter Don Cherry, saxophonist Dewey Redman, bassist Charlie Haden and drummer Ed Blackwell and was recorded in 1980 for the ECM label.

Usage examples of "playing".

I myself can barely look back on those twenty years of amatory servility with a full comprehension of the part I have been playing in them.

An announcer, his voice as stiff as his undoubted shirt, broke into the playing and announced a special news bulletin.

Meanwhile, the children, Fox and Oriole, had made friends with the Antelope children, and soon they were all playing together.

Maintaining the literary aporia for Kundera seems to entail flirting with antifeminist politics, if not playing into the hands of conservative politics in general.

Arlbery laughed heartily at the recital, assuring her she doubted not but she had made acquaintance with some dangerous fair one, who was playing upon her inexperience, and utterly unfit to be known to her.

For instance, if the student intent upon his problem in analysis does not notice the flickering light, the playing of the piano, or the smell of the burning meat breaking in upon him, it is because this problem occupies the centre of the attentive field.

McQueen had already proved herself capable of playing the attrition game when that was her only option.

At each crossroads and turn, Lirenda was balked by piled-up snow, street stalls swarming with commerce and stopped carts, and racing urchins playing a northcountry game with flat sticks and a stitched leather ball.

Molly managed to coax Gracie out of her stubbornness and they walked briskly to where Daisy sat playing with some dry banksia nuts.

Fennella was the start of the direct path straight back to the real world, the restaurants, the shaded lights, stained-glass over green baize tables, women in expensive gowns playing seemingly expensive games that were at root primitively simple, even bars where the bartender bothered to remember your name.

The only thing they knew about it was that the road was so full of ruts and pits that they were jolted from side to side and flung up and down as though the carriage were playing battledore and shuttlecock with them.

Beast was no beast, but the human bandits, making beastlike sounds with curious instruments, playing and tormenting their captive with the threat of an imagined beast.

On the kitchen floor, amid a litter of empty champagne fifths, were Sandor Rojas and three friends, playing spit in the ocean and staying awake on Heidseck and benzedrine pills.

Blanche flirted, in fact, more or less with all men, but her opportunity for playing her harmless batteries upon Bernard were of course exceptionally large.

Gellor left off the runs and rills, playing instead a melody and singing a ballad that bespoke the comradery and gladness of a forest camp at the coming of night.