play to

phrasal verb

played to; playing to; plays to

: to behave or perform in a particular way for (someone or something) in order to get approval or attention

He didn't mean what he was saying. He was just playing to the crowd.

He loves publicity and plays to the cameras every chance he gets.

: to make use of (something)

a film that plays to stereotypes of housewives

In his latest album, he once again plays to his strengths as a classical musician.

Examples of play to in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web The stadium tour played to more than 3 million people over two years. —

Jem Aswad, Variety, 18 July 2024 Taylor Swift, The Tortured Poets Department (Republic): Are there any cards left for Taylor Swift to play to maintain her already-historic Poets run atop the Billboard 200? —

Andrew Unterberger, Billboard, 17 July 2024 To be clear, Norman Bates, played to creepy perfection by Anthony Perkins, was not written as trans. —

Samantha Allen, Them, 17 July 2024 The quartet will return to playing to a much, much larger audience when their summer kicks off Friday with the first of three shows at Mansfield, Massachusetts’ Xfinity Center. —

Daniel Kreps, Rolling Stone, 17 July 2024 See all Example Sentences for play to

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'play to.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.