Thesaurus results for PLAY ON

play (on or upon)

verb

Definition of play (on or upon)

as in to use

to take unfair advantage of the candidate played on the voters' prejudices

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Recent Examples of Synonyms for play (on or upon)

Verb

When the Wright brothers first flew, the doubt was never about whether the machine worked, but whether flight would ever be something ordinary people used without a second thought.

— Charlotte Kiang, Forbes.com, 9 July 2026
In the Tahoe Basin, the Caldor fire restoration plan outlines roughly 3,600 acres where the Forest Service could use ground crews to apply herbicide directly to shrubs — no aerial spraying.

— Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times, 9 July 2026

Definition of use

Verb

Parties have exploited lulls in fighting to buy time, rebuild capabilities and consolidate political or territorial gains ahead of the next round of conflict.

— Anthony Wanis-St John, The Conversation, 10 July 2026
Instead of performing occasional security audits, organisations will increasingly use AI to test their systems continuously, helping identify vulnerabilities before they can be exploited.

— Christopher McFadden, Interesting Engineering, 10 July 2026

Definition of exploit

Verb

For more on how attackers can abuse connected devices, see our report on how the FBI warned that more than 1 million Android devices were hijacked by malware.

— Kurt Knutsson, FOXNews.com, 3 July 2026
Some dogs fear brooms, vacuum cleaners or other household products, particularly if they’ve been hurt or abused in the past.

— BestReviews, Mercury News, 2 July 2026

Definition of abuse

Verb

Brazil is building, and its stars looking for larger markets, leveraging its film industry’s sudden explosion onto the international film scene.

— John Hopewell, Variety, 7 July 2026
While bad actors are increasingly deploying AI to scale and automate their operations, organizations are also leveraging the technology to improve threat detection and accelerate response times.

— Melissa Hancock, Fortune, 7 July 2026

Definition of leverage

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Browse Nearby Words

play-offs

play (on or upon)

play out

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“Play (on or upon).” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/play%20%28on%20or%20upon%29. Accessed 11 Jul. 2026.

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Synonyms of play (on or upon)

verb

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