Word.ws English Dictionary

play-off

play-off is the alternative spelling of playoff.

Meaning of playoff

Noun

playoff (plural playoffs)

  1. A final game in a series needed to break a tie.
  2. (Canada, US) A short series of games to select a league champion.
  3. (UK) A short series of games to select the last team to be promoted (to elevate to a higher league).
  4. A short piece of underscore played during a scene transition in a stage musical, usually reprising a song from the preceding scene.

Forms of play-off

pluralplay-offs

Origin of play-off

Deverbal from play off.

Questions about play-off

What is play-off the alternative spelling of?
Play-off is the alternative spelling of playoff.

Words near play-off in the dictionary

  1. play-doh
  2. play-house
  3. play-houses
  4. play-of-color
  5. play-of-colour
  6. play-off
  7. play-offs
  8. play-parties
  9. play-party
  10. play-play
  11. play-right

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: play-off (page history and authors); playoff (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.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “play-off.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/play-off. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.