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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But the recent action on Anthropic, as well as asking OpenAI to limit its own newest model, comes after experts have fretted for months that Mythos could pose a security risk by giving hackers and other bad actors access to AI capable of finding and exploiting vulnerabilities exceptionally quickly.
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The 2018 games in Russia similarly came under fire for accusations of bribery and exploiting workers.
Verb
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But Swedish intelligence recently alleged the country was manipulating economic data and that the true inflation rate could be much higher, perhaps as high as 15%.
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Fears of government officials manipulating world events – including the Iran war – to make a quick buck.
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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 4 Jul. 2026.
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