as in to pose
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Recent Examples of playact
Today, Margaret would be playacting her own massacre in active shooter drills at school.
—
Petula Dvorak, Washington Post, 1 May 2023
Trump’s modus, as ever, was to playact; his game has always been improv.
—Joe Klein, Washington Post, 12 Jan. 2023
Trixie advises Alma to playact highness to flummox E.B.
—Matt Zoller Seitz, Vulture, 18 Dec. 2021
Today, this dynamic lives on in the form of Roblox strip clubs, where young people — mostly, minors — playact at adult sexuality.
—Ej Dickson, Rolling Stone, 12 Sep. 2021
The world had first required her to playact as a man.
—Will Stephenson, Harper's Magazine, 15 Sep. 2020
Yona has it better than the locals who have agreed to playact, and likely die, in Mui’s fake new disaster.
—Madeline Leung Coleman, The Atlantic, 13 Aug. 2020
In a twist, The Sims is now a way to playact not just an alternate life, but any life at all.
—Kaitlyn Tiffany, The Atlantic, 19 Apr. 2020
Cloud is almost childlike, a boy playacting at being a warrior and not always nailing the part.
—Julie Muncy, Wired, 10 Apr. 2020
Petula Dvorak, Washington Post, 1 May 2023
Trump’s modus, as ever, was to playact; his game has always been improv.
—Joe Klein, Washington Post, 12 Jan. 2023
Trixie advises Alma to playact highness to flummox E.B.
—Matt Zoller Seitz, Vulture, 18 Dec. 2021
Today, this dynamic lives on in the form of Roblox strip clubs, where young people — mostly, minors — playact at adult sexuality.
—Ej Dickson, Rolling Stone, 12 Sep. 2021
The world had first required her to playact as a man.
—Will Stephenson, Harper's Magazine, 15 Sep. 2020
Yona has it better than the locals who have agreed to playact, and likely die, in Mui’s fake new disaster.
—Madeline Leung Coleman, The Atlantic, 13 Aug. 2020
In a twist, The Sims is now a way to playact not just an alternate life, but any life at all.
—Kaitlyn Tiffany, The Atlantic, 19 Apr. 2020
Cloud is almost childlike, a boy playacting at being a warrior and not always nailing the part.
—Julie Muncy, Wired, 10 Apr. 2020
Recent Examples of Synonyms for playact
Verb
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In another case, aerial imagery helped stakeholders monitor a rising river in British Columbia that posed severe flood risks.—
Gary Weinstein,
Forbes.com,
18 Aug. 2025
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The last few years have seen Chimaev face criticism due to his ties to notorious Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov – the two have posed together for photos and Kadyrov attended Chimaev’s wedding in 2022.—
Jamie Barton,
CNN Money,
17 Aug. 2025
Verb
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Codependence can masquerade as closeness, slowly displacing everything that once belonged like a foreign weed introduced into a native garden.—
Eileen Kelly,
Vogue,
4 Aug. 2025
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Indeed, the popular joke is that Yale is a hedge fund masquerading as a university.—
Chris Powell,
Hartford Courant,
4 Aug. 2025
Verb
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The scammer will pretend to be verified customers and leave reviews for the products that are delivered to unsuspecting residents.—
Laura Daniella Sepulveda,
AZCentral.com,
15 Aug. 2025
-
The latest text message attacks making headlines (1,2,3) pretend to be from Amazon.—
Zak Doffman,
Forbes.com,
15 Aug. 2025
Verb
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In the real world, a fake account impersonates a golfer, initiates contact, then quickly shifts the conversation to Telegram or WhatsApp.—
Devlina Sarkar,
MSNBC Newsweek,
17 Aug. 2025
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The jury also added charges of felony cruelty to an animal and impersonating a police officer with an aggravating factor of driving a vehicle that looked like a police car.—
Emily Hallas,
The Washington Examiner,
15 Aug. 2025
Verb
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The kidnapper is played by A$AP Rocky, who has somehow turned Testing into a lifetime headliner slot at Rolling Loud and a legitimate acting career.—
Alphonse Pierre,
Pitchfork,
15 Aug. 2025
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Paul Dean, a former acting assistant secretary of State who oversaw arms control and led the U.S. delegation to the New START implementation body, emphasized that the treaty’s enforcement measures also keep the world a safer place.—
Davis Winkie,
USA Today,
15 Aug. 2025
Verb
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In their new action-comedy movie The Pickup, Eddie Murphy and Pete Davidson play armored truck drivers who are reluctantly pulled into a casino heist when a burglar (Keke Palmer) hijacks their vehicle.—
Wesley Stenzel,
EW.com,
8 Aug. 2025
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For the 2006 film, Anika Noni Rose played Lorrell, Beyoncé played Deena, and Hudson played Effie.—
Ingrid Vasquez,
People.com,
8 Aug. 2025
Verb
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Building trust in companies and their leaders isn’t easy, given many decades of dissembling.—
Steve Denning,
Forbes.com,
6 July 2025
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You’d like your government to tell you the truth, and the government dissembled repeatedly after the raid about what the rules of engagement were.—
Aryeh Neier,
The New York Review of Books,
3 Mar. 2025
Verb
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From feigning ignorance to minimizing violence and praising its perpetrators, U.S. governments and presidents have long used deceptive rhetoric to legitimize the violence of leaders and countries the U.S. supports.—
Esther Brito Ruiz,
The Conversation,
7 Aug. 2025
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All research seems to indicate that this back-to-back joke from 1985 was the lodestar for the meme of a socially inept teen feigning virile worldliness with a gal in America's northern neighbor country.—
Jordan Hoffman Updated,
EW.com,
2 Aug. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Playact.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/playact. Accessed 21 Aug. 2025.
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