as in used
to take unfair advantage of
the candidate played on the voters' prejudices
Synonyms & Similar Words
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Example Sentences
Recent Examples of Synonyms for played (on or upon)
Verb
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The mice will be used in experiments on reproduction in low Earth orbit.—
Reuters,
CNN Money,
1 Nov. 2025 -
Rare earths are something that China used some years ago in a spat with Japan.—
Kerry Brown,
Time,
31 Oct. 2025
Verb
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Barcelona used a mix of zonal and man-marking but struggled when teams exploited their comparalative lack of height and physicality by using players in motion.—
Anantaajith Raghuraman,
New York Times,
25 Oct. 2025
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Inter-agent trust — the tendency for an AI agent to trust other AI agents by default — can also be exploited to get around the guardrails built into popular systems.—
Big Think,
Big Think,
24 Oct. 2025
Verb
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Images of Iraqi detainees being stripped naked and abused, published by the media, shocked the world.—
Ben Wedeman,
CNN Money,
5 Nov. 2025
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Many of us were abused by them.—
Phaedra Trethan,
USA Today,
3 Nov. 2025
Verb
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Activists there leveraged this wholly unanticipated outcome to accelerate the rise of an organized antislavery campaign after 1783.—
Literary Hub,
Literary Hub,
7 Nov. 2025
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The high court’s nine justices are slated to hear 80 minutes of oral arguments about whether the Commander in Chief lawfully leveraged a 1977 trade law, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), in implementing double-digit duties on America’s trading partners across the globe.—
Kate Nishimura,
Sourcing Journal,
5 Nov. 2025
Verb
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Even among some voters who were sincerely uncomfortable with Mamdani’s past rhetoric, many rationalized that an authentic Democrat with a pulse was still better than someone who might be manipulated from afar.—
Philip Elliott,
Time,
5 Nov. 2025
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Experts said those markets are at risk of being manipulated by foreign influence.—
Kate Plummer,
MSNBC Newsweek,
4 Nov. 2025
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Cite this Entry
“Played (on or upon).” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/played%20%28on%20or%20upon%29. Accessed 8 Nov. 2025.
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