Word.ws English Dictionary

play one against another

play one against another verb: to manipulate two persons into competing against one another in a way that benefits the person carrying out the manipulation.

Verb

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

  1. (idiomatic) To manipulate two persons into competing against one another in a way that benefits the person carrying out the manipulation.
    • You would expect that we would stick together more, but no way Pete! They lie and snitch on each other and so the system has even more control over us by playing us against each other.1989 December 10, Glenda Edwards, “They Can't Keep Me Away From My Stink”, in Gay Community News, volume 17, number 22, page 5

Forms of play one against another

third-person singular presentplays one against another
present participleplaying one against another
past participleplayed one against another
pastplayed one against another

Questions about play one against another

What does play one against another mean?
Play one against another means to manipulate two persons into competing against one another in a way that benefits the person carrying out the manipulation.
What part of speech is play one against another?
Play one against another is a verb.
What is the past tense of play one against another?
The past tense of play one against another is played one against another.

Words near play one against another in the dictionary

  1. play Old Harry
  2. play Old Harry with
  3. play on
  4. play on someone's heartstrings
  5. play on words
  6. play one against another
  7. play one's cards right
  8. play one's cards well
  9. play one's guts out
  10. play one's hand right
  11. play one's part

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: play one against another (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-play one against another.ogg.

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