as in exploiting
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 playing (upon)
Verb
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Amidst the ongoing privacy issues surrounding door cameras and the backlash over social media giants exploiting user data to train their own models, today’s robots invite both passive and active observers into our homes and leave our data exposed to bad actors.—
Jason Corso,
Fortune,
6 Jan. 2026 -
For years, the debate around this issue has been quietly deadlocked between the forces for common sense reform to dramatically lower the cost of construction, and personal injury lawyers who reap increasingly large windfalls by exploiting this law.—
Elizabeth Crowley,
New York Daily News,
6 Jan. 2026
Verb
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Using Henry's good nature … by lying to him, by manipulating him.—
Natalie Morales,
CBS News,
27 Jan. 2026
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Uhlaender accused the Canadian team and its coach, Joe Cecchini, of intentionally withdrawing the athletes, deliberately manipulating the field to benefit one of their own sliders’ bids for qualification.—
Don Riddell,
CNN Money,
26 Jan. 2026
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Cite this Entry
“Playing (upon).” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/playing%20%28upon%29. Accessed 1 Feb. 2026.
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