byplay
byplay noun: any action, carried out onstage during a performance, apart from the main action.
Noun
byplay (countable and uncountable, plural byplays)
- Any action, carried out onstage during a performance, apart from the main action.
- [...] there had been some amusing byplay with the enginemen as to what might be expected to happen if the engines failed to behave themselves properly.1959 October, Cecil J. Allen, “Locomotive Running Past and Present”, in Trains Illustrated, page 477
- The father-son byplay is occasionally overdone and tedious, but there is a genuine warmth in both the Oland-Luke and the Toler-Sen Yung teamings.1983, Frank Northen Magill, Magill's American film guide, volume 1, page 647
- Any action, by supporting actor.
Forms of byplay
| plural | byplays |
|---|---|
| alternative form | by-play |
Origin of byplay
From by- + play.
Questions about byplay
- What does byplay mean?
- Byplay means any action, carried out onstage during a performance, apart from the main action.
- What part of speech is byplay?
- Byplay is a noun.
- What is the plural of byplay?
- The plural of byplay is byplays.
Words near byplay in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: byplay (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this entry: “byplay.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/byplay. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.