Word.ws English Dictionary

play favorites

play favorites verb: to show favoritism towards one party.

Verb

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

  1. To show favoritism towards one party.
    Synonyms:
    favoritize

Synonyms of play favorites

Forms of play favorites

third-person singular presentplays favorites
present participleplaying favorites
past participleplayed favorites
pastplayed favorites
alternative UKplay favourites

Questions about play favorites

What does play favorites mean?
Play favorites means to show favoritism towards one party.
What part of speech is play favorites?
Play favorites is a verb.
What is the past tense of play favorites?
The past tense of play favorites is played favorites.

Words near play favorites in the dictionary

  1. play down
  2. play dumb
  3. play equipment
  4. play fair
  5. play fast and loose
  6. play favorites
  7. play fight
  8. play fights
  9. play fine
  10. play first fiddle
  11. play for a fool

Source and license

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