: a bill (see bill entry 4 sense 5a) advertising a public performance or set of performances
A playbill—an early poster—advertising Shakespeare's Hamlet at Newcastle's original Theatre Royal in Mosley Street in December 1791 was discovered among prints bought in an auction sale …—
Tony Henderson
Tony HendersonSo the two began plastering up playbills and cultivating a badboy image.—Logan Hill
Logan Hill
—used for a theater program (see program entry 1 sense 2a)
Examples of playbill in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
Escher Walcott, PEOPLE, 18 Apr. 2026
The couple shared their excitement for Joaquin's performance on social media, with Ripa sharing photos of the show's playbill on her Instagram stories.
—Edward Segarra, USA Today, 10 Apr. 2026
All performances offer accessible seating, large-print playbills and sensory kits; select showtimes also offer open captions, mask requirements, ASL interpretation and audio description services.
—Jared Kaufman, Twin Cities, 8 Apr. 2026
The names of the oldest Metro stations also contained micro-histories, so too the faded playbills of the theaters and chipped words at the tramcar stop.
—Literary Hub, 3 Apr. 2026
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Noun
Rapper Common flashes the playbills for the new Broadway show The Fear of 13 on opening night at the James Earl Jones Theatre in New York City on April 15.
—Escher Walcott, PEOPLE, 18 Apr. 2026
The couple shared their excitement for Joaquin's performance on social media, with Ripa sharing photos of the show's playbill on her Instagram stories.
—Edward Segarra, USA Today, 10 Apr. 2026
All performances offer accessible seating, large-print playbills and sensory kits; select showtimes also offer open captions, mask requirements, ASL interpretation and audio description services.
—Jared Kaufman, Twin Cities, 8 Apr. 2026
The names of the oldest Metro stations also contained micro-histories, so too the faded playbills of the theaters and chipped words at the tramcar stop.
—Literary Hub, 3 Apr. 2026
See All Example Sentences for playbill
Cite this Entry
“Playbill.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/playbill. Accessed 22 Apr. 2026.
Copy CitationKids Definition
playbill
noun
play·bill
ˈplā-ˌbil 
: a poster advertising a play
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