The Collaborative International Dictionary
Play \Play\, n.
Amusement; sport; frolic; gambols.
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Any exercise, or series of actions, intended for amusement or diversion; a game.
John naturally loved rough play.
--Arbuthnot. 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.
Action; use; employment; exercise; practice; as, fair play; sword play; a play of wit. ``The next who comes in play.''
--Dryden.-
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.
--Dryden. The representation or exhibition of a comedy or tragedy; as, he attends ever play.
Performance on an instrument of music.
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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.''
--Milton.The joints are let exactly into one another, that they have no play between them.
--Moxon. -
Hence, liberty of acting; room for enlargement or display; scope; as, to give full play to mirth.
Play actor, an actor of dramas.
--Prynne.Play debt, a gambling debt.
--Arbuthnot.Play pleasure, idle amusement. [Obs.]
--Bacon.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.
--Macaulay.
Usage examples of "play of colors".
A rainbow play of colors resolved into a sharply defined image of a room lined with books and scrolls.
A rainbow play of colors resolved intoa sharply defined image of a room lined with books andscrolls.
Staring into the fire, Gil could see nothingonly the play of colors, topaz and rose and citrine, and the curling heat shivering over the rocks that enclosed the pit, revealing, like frost-traceries, the ghostly patterns of fossil ferns printed in the fabric of the rock.
All was quiet and still there now, the stir, the murmur, the play of colors all past.
It was as hard to read as the play of colors on the controls of a Heechee spacecraft.
None of the fargi nearby paid any heed to her moving fingers and the play of colors across the palms of her hands.
The blaze of the arc, the intense brilliance of the incandescent metal, and the weird light of the beam of radiation shifted in a fantastic play of colors.
It opened as though it were an orange that was unsegmenting and a play of colors began within it, together with a soft wash of sound.