Word.ws English Dictionary

play host to

play host to verb: to host an important event or visitor.

Verb

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

  1. To host an important event or visitor.
    • Madrid played host to the 2022 Candidates Tournament.
    • The staff were used to playing host to royalty and world leaders at 10 Downing Street, not a little girl, a transvestite tramp, and his dog.2009 October 29, David Walliams [pseudonym; David Edward Williams], Mr Stink, London: HarperCollins Children’s Books, →ISBN

Forms of play host to

third-person singular presentplays host to
present participleplaying host to
past participleplayed host to
pastplayed host to

Questions about play host to

What does play host to mean?
Play host to means to host an important event or visitor.
What part of speech is play host to?
Play host to is a verb.
What is the past tense of play host to?
The past tense of play host to is played host to.

Words near play host to in the dictionary

  1. play hell with
  2. play hob with
  3. play hookey
  4. play hookie
  5. play hooky
  6. play host to
  7. play house
  8. play houses
  9. play in
  10. play in Peoria
  11. play into

Source and license

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