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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Venezuela and the Caribbean nation — who in the 1990s signed a delimitation treaty establishing the terms for exploiting any hydrocarbon deposits on both sides of the border strip — share the Gulf of Paria, an inland sea at Venezuela’s westernmost end and south of the island of Trinidad.—
Los Angeles Times,
Los Angeles Times,
11 May 2026 -
Breaking the sound barrier without breaking hardware moves us a step closer to fully exploiting this new mode of planetary exploration.—
ArsTechnica,
ArsTechnica,
8 May 2026
Verb
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Another method involves manipulating routing through Border Gateway Protocol (BGP).—
Georgina Jedikovska,
Interesting Engineering,
4 May 2026
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However, manipulating elections or even giving the appearance of fixing an election is what an anti-Democracy person would do.—
Gary Franks,
Hartford Courant,
3 May 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 12 May. 2026.
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