Word.ws English Dictionary

play politics

play politics verb: to act or say something according to political ambition, self-interest, and gamesmanship instead of moral conviction and altruism; to politick.

Verb

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

  1. (derogatory, idiomatic, intransitive) to act or say something according to political ambition, self-interest, and gamesmanship instead of moral conviction and altruism; to politick

Forms of play politics

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

Questions about play politics

What does play politics mean?
Play politics means to act or say something according to political ambition, self-interest, and gamesmanship instead of moral conviction and altruism; to politick.
What part of speech is play politics?
Play politics is a verb.
What is the past tense of play politics?
The past tense of play politics is played politics.

Words near play politics in the dictionary

  1. play parks
  2. play parties
  3. play party
  4. play pendulum
  5. play place
  6. play politics
  7. play possum
  8. play pretties
  9. play pretty
  10. play pussy
  11. play room

Source and license

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