Word.ws English Dictionary

play for a fool

play for a fool verb: to trick/fool somebody.

Verb

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

  1. (colloquial, transitive) to trick/fool somebody

Forms of play for a fool

third-person singular presentplays for a fool
present participleplaying for a fool
past participleplayed for a fool
pastplayed for a fool

Questions about play for a fool

What does play for a fool mean?
Play for a fool means to trick/fool somebody.
What part of speech is play for a fool?
Play for a fool is a verb.
What is the past tense of play for a fool?
The past tense of play for a fool is played for a fool.

Words near play for a fool in the dictionary

  1. play favorites
  2. play fight
  3. play fights
  4. play fine
  5. play first fiddle
  6. play for a fool
  7. play for love
  8. play for time
  9. play full
  10. play games
  11. play God

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: play for a fool (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 for a fool.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/play_for_a_fool. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.