play-play
play-play verb: to mess around, to play around; to take things lightly.
Verb
play-play (invariable)
- To mess around, to play around; to take things lightly.
- Don't play-play hor.
- […] Don’t play play... This is not your basic luxury condo. […]2009, Jean Tay, Boom, Epigram Books, →ISBN, Act I, scene iv
Adjective
play-play (comparative more play-play, superlative most play-play)
- Fake, toy, make-believe
- They’re at the age when they want more than just a play-play watch.1989 December, Edgars Christmas Catalogue
Forms of play-play
| comparative | more play-play |
|---|---|
| superlative | most play-play |
Origin of play-play
Reduplication of play, influenced by Malay grammar (Malay main-main), or a calque of Mandarin 玩玩 (wánwan).
Reduplication of play, possibly influenced by Afrikaans speel-speel.
Questions about play-play
- What does play-play mean?
- Play-play means to mess around, to play around; to take things lightly.
- What part of speech is play-play?
- Play-play can be a verb or an adjective.
Words near play-play in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: play-play (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-play.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/play-play. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.