as in joking
wildly playful or mischievous behavior
when he saw us spraying each other with the hose instead of washing the car, Dad yelled, "Cut out the horseplay!"
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Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of horseplay
Mike Vrabel’s back And the horseplay is going to stop, apparently.
—
Josh Kendall, The Athletic, 11 Feb. 2025
Key speeches are faithfully delivered to an audience of two, not thousands; a scene of soldiers destructively revelling on a bridge is given a different spirit by ironic, out-of-time horseplay.
—Guy Lodge, Variety, 8 Feb. 2025
And yes, there were cases on public roads where the horseplay turned dangerous.
—Mark Price, Miami Herald, 22 Jan. 2025
On my gondola, however, horseplay is not only encouraged, it is required.
—Frederick Dreier, Outside Online, 24 Sep. 2024
See All Example Sentences for horseplay
Josh Kendall, The Athletic, 11 Feb. 2025
Key speeches are faithfully delivered to an audience of two, not thousands; a scene of soldiers destructively revelling on a bridge is given a different spirit by ironic, out-of-time horseplay.
—Guy Lodge, Variety, 8 Feb. 2025
And yes, there were cases on public roads where the horseplay turned dangerous.
—Mark Price, Miami Herald, 22 Jan. 2025
On my gondola, however, horseplay is not only encouraged, it is required.
—Frederick Dreier, Outside Online, 24 Sep. 2024
See All Example Sentences for horseplay
Recent Examples of Synonyms for horseplay
Noun
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Only an Aries, like Lily, can take Barney’s jabs in a joking way.—
Lisa Stardust,
PEOPLE,
19 Sep. 2025
-
When Peanut pulled his second escape act, his owners knew where to look and handled Peanut's disappearance in a joking manner.—
Michael Nied,
People.com,
2 Sep. 2025
Noun
-
Finally, after plenty of clowning, Taylor Swift has revealed that her 12th album is on the way, titled The Life of a Showgirl.—
Tom Smyth,
Vulture,
13 Aug. 2025
-
This is a work in which the slapstick clowning and the tricky verbal non sequiturs should be merely the surface for roiling undercurrents of anguish, futility, despair and fear.—
David Rooney,
HollywoodReporter,
3 Sep. 2019
Noun
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This is why some people work nine hours a day, go to the gym, and roughhouse with their kids in the evening, while others already feel tired just thinking about this daily schedule.—
Lieke ten Brummelhuis,
Forbes.com,
1 Sep. 2025
-
This makes the roughhouse ballet a satisfying bridge to the final scene in Roberta’s room, where their vulnerabilities are revealed.—
Peter Marks,
Washington Post,
14 Nov. 2023
Noun
-
This Survivor 49 challenge tomfoolery actually began before the season even started filming.—
Dalton Ross,
Entertainment Weekly,
8 Oct. 2025
-
Rite of passage or midnight tomfoolery?—
Jake Allen,
IndyStar,
10 Sep. 2025
Noun
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Their relationship, tentative, intimate, and defiant, lingers long after the satirical skewering of male buffoonery has faded.—
Leila Latif,
IndieWire,
5 Sep. 2025
-
He’s been tinkering with this messaging on and off since damn near the start of the century, when his criticism of the genre shifted from the power-holding executives (both white and Black) of the music industry who were profiting off buffoonery, a la Bamboozled, to rap music itself.—
Alphonse Pierre,
Pitchfork,
15 Aug. 2025
Noun
-
As for Abdul-Mateen, the clownery will resume for him on Broadway.—
Jessica Wang,
EW.com,
1 Sep. 2022
-
Tirhakah Love is a senior writer at New York Magazine and the host of the new evening newsletter Dinner Party, a daily email that touches on all things entertainment — that means film, television, music, tech, and gaming — plus politics and corporate clownery.—
Vulture,
Vulture,
29 Apr. 2022
Noun
-
And for those who love a statement, Chloe’s plexiglass wedges and Miu Miu’s apron dress injected just the right dose of playfulness into the mix.—
Rhonda Richford,
Footwear News,
8 Oct. 2025
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The child’s name, Glen/Glenda, is an overt reference to Ed Wood’s cult camp classic Glen or Glenda, and the presence of the real Jennifer Tilly on the set of a fictional, in-universe Chucky movie only add’s to the film’s metatextual playfulness.—
Samantha Allen,
Them.,
7 Oct. 2025
Noun
-
The first of 12 projects outlined in the book is a literal slapstick, the classic vaudeville tool used to imitate the sound of smacking someone with a stick.—
Michael Roberts,
Outside,
9 Oct. 2025
-
The scene doesn’t go as planned, leading its irate French director Caroline Lescot (Nathalie Richard) to cause a slapstick ruckus, shot at a distance by Köhler’s camera.—
Siddhant Adlakha,
Variety,
28 Sep. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Horseplay.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/horseplay. Accessed 16 Oct. 2025.
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