play at

verb

played at; playing at; plays at

1

: to do (something) in a way that is not serious

They were only playing at trying to fix the problem.

2

chiefly British : to play by pretending to be (someone or something)

She liked to play at doctors and nurses as a child.

—often used in the phrase play at being (something)

boys playing at being soldiers

3

British

—used to say in an annoyed way that one does not know the reason for someone's behavior

What is he playing at?

Examples of play at in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

With the film business scrambling to find the next Curry Barker or Kane Parsons, head of programming Evrim Ersoy says the industry is keeping an eye on the shorts blocks that play at the Los Feliz Theater. — Pat Saperstein, Variety, 29 Sep. 2026

Both of his parents played at collegiate level and the youngest of four brothers followed in the footsteps of his three older siblings, all of whom play the Beautiful Game. — Ben Church, CNN Money, 29 Sep. 2026

The system achieved validation accuracy above 90 percent when processing moving-image sequences played at different speeds. — Neetika Walter, Interesting Engineering, 28 Sep. 2026

The team’s leading receiver was Brycen Tremayne — Xavier Legette didn’t play at all with a knee injury and Jalen Coker missed a bulk of the second half with a quad injury. — Alex Zietlow, Charlotte Observer, 28 Sep. 2026

Rhymes for play at

• begat
• bobcat
• chitchat
• doormat
• ducat
• eclat
• format
• hazmat
• muskrat
• nonfat
• polecat
• thereat