Perform on a stage or theater

Usage examples of playacting.

The Germans are playacting here an elaborate denial of their central effort in this war, the eradication of a people and of two world religions.

Jews playacting vacationers at a happy peacetime spa, all add up to a musical comedy in the open air, utterly unreal.

What would the Quality be up to next, with their playacting and their revels?

I shook my head and tried more inept playacting to demonstrate that such activity would do no harm, but rather a world of good for my spirits.

It was so incongruously bridal, so grossly unsuitablewhy on earth had she tricked herself out like a raddled old spinster playacting at being married?

And neither of them Scottish at all, just playacting because they know they look sensational in kilts and they like to be the center of attention.

She spoke his name on a sigh and experienced a wave of shame for complaining about something as trivial as playacting, when that poor, sweet boy was surviving what must be a hellish existence in that horrible place.

She glanced at him long enough to realize with some relief that the gift was one that the playacting Carson was giving to his playacting wife.

I talked to her a little, and she had gotten to that same point, what with playacting for a long time, then getting sick of pretending and just being whatever she was.

It was so incongruously bridal, so grossly unsuitable--why on earth had she tricked herself out like a raddled old spinster playacting at being married?

It was almost as if he were going through the motions, or maybe even playacting what was expected of him.

Hester had a sudden suspicion that part of him was enjoying playacting the role.

This time one of the clowns pulled in a wagon, and one of my cousins was there with the big billfold and the big dollars playacting, pretending to buy sacred things.

It was you who devised the elaborate playacting in which you were supposedly stripped of your kilts, so that you could enter this city and spy upon the Sidonians.

There were no books on the subject, no X-rated videotapes, no guide to the mysteries of sex, but in some incredible instinctual way, they'd discovered oral sex, the sixty-nine position, the erogenous zones, erotic undressing, a dozen different positions, dirty talk, and playacting.