Word.ws English Dictionary

play dead

play dead verb: to lie very still, like a corpse.

Verb

play dead (third-person singular simple present plays dead, present participle playing dead, simple past and past participle played dead)

  1. To lie very still, like a corpse.
    • Near-synonym: play doggo
  2. To act as though defeated while awaiting a chance to attack.

play dead meaning in Tagalog

play dead in Tagalog

to lie very still, like a corpse
magpatay-patayan

Synonyms of play dead

Forms of play dead

third-person singular presentplays dead
present participleplaying dead
past participleplayed dead
pastplayed dead

Questions about play dead

What does play dead mean?
Play dead means to lie very still, like a corpse.
What is play dead in Tagalog?
Play dead in Tagalog is magpatay-patayan. See Play dead meaning in Tagalog.
What part of speech is play dead?
Play dead is a verb.
What is the past tense of play dead?
The past tense of play dead is played dead.

Words near play dead in the dictionary

  1. play club
  2. play clubs
  3. play Cupid
  4. play date
  5. play dates
  6. play dead
  7. play dirty
  8. play doctor
  9. play doctors
  10. play doggo
  11. play down

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: play dead (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: “play dead.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/play_dead. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.