toy with

phrasal verb

toyed with; toying with; toys with
1
: to think about (something) briefly and not very seriously
I toyed with the idea of moving to France but ended up staying here.
2
: to move or touch (something) with one's fingers often without thinking
She toyed with her hair while she talked on the phone.
3
: to deal with or control (someone or something) in a clever and usually unfair or selfish way
Do you really love me, or are you just toying with me?
Don't toy with my emotions.

Examples of toy with in a Sentence

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By this point, Matthiessen was already toying with the idea of becoming a writer. Maggie Doherty, New Yorker, 13 Oct. 2025 There’s a high-wire tension to Linda’s toying with disaster, a way in which the film feels like the Uncut Gems of motherhood (Josh Safdie is actually a producer). Alison Willmore, Vulture, 10 Oct. 2025 The royal memorably wore a Catherine Walker suit with a Hackett waistcoat at an event in April 1988 and went on to toy with fashion conventions as a modern royal. Julia Teti, Footwear News, 9 Oct. 2025 While Black Ops 6 toyed with a more grounded, back-to-the-basics approach of UAVs, airstrikes, and attack choppers as scorestreak rewards for tallying enough points or kills, the speculative fiction framework of BLOPS 7 means everything requires a heightened tone. Christopher Cruz, Rolling Stone, 7 Oct. 2025 See All Example Sentences for toy with

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“Toy with.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/toy%20with. Accessed 20 Oct. 2025.

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