Word.ws English Dictionary

play safe

play safe is the alternative form of play it safe.

Meaning of play it safe

Verb

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

  1. To take a cautious, risk-free approach.
    • Deciding to play it safe, he joined his father's accounting firm rather than pursue an acting career.
    Antonyms:
    play big, go all in

Forms of play safe

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

Questions about play safe

What is play safe the alternative form of?
Play safe is the alternative form of play it safe.

Words near play safe in the dictionary

  1. play pretties
  2. play pretty
  3. play pussy
  4. play room
  5. play rooms
  6. play safe
  7. play second fiddle
  8. play silly beggars
  9. play silly buggers
  10. play small
  11. play someone at their own game

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: play safe (page history and authors); play it safe (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 safe.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/play_safe. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.