as in exploited
to control or take advantage of by artful, unfair, or insidious means
played upon the customer's vanity to convince her to buy the expensive makeup kit
Synonyms & Similar Words
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Example Sentences
Recent Examples of Synonyms for played (upon)
Verb
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Vulnerabilities in those systems have been exploited in high-profile attacks across DeFi.—
Tony Bradley,
Forbes.com,
13 Sep. 2025 -
Jeffrey Breinholt, an architect of the material support statutes who spent three decades as a federal terrorism prosecutor, defends the laws as crucial to closing loopholes that were exploited by foreign militant groups and their domestic sympathizers.—
Hannah Allam,
ProPublica,
10 Sep. 2025
Verb
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Trump claimed without evidence that McEntarfer had manipulated statistics for political reasons.—
Max Zahn,
ABC News,
11 Sep. 2025
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By the end of the episode, Isaac is dead, Nibs has had part of her memory wiped, and Slightly has been manipulated by Morrow into letting one of the face-huggers turn Arthur into a Xenomorph incubator.—
Alan Sepinwall,
Rolling Stone,
9 Sep. 2025
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Cite this Entry
“Played (upon).” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/played%20%28upon%29. Accessed 15 Sep. 2025.
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