Word.ws English Dictionary

play the odds

play the odds verb: to act, hoping for a particular, possible outcome.

Verb

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

  1. To act, hoping for a particular, possible outcome.

Forms of play the odds

third-person singular presentplays the odds
present participleplaying the odds
past participleplayed the odds
pastplayed the odds

Questions about play the odds

What does play the odds mean?
Play the odds means to act, hoping for a particular, possible outcome.
What part of speech is play the odds?
Play the odds is a verb.
What is the past tense of play the odds?
The past tense of play the odds is played the odds.

Words near play the odds in the dictionary

  1. play the man and not the ball
  2. play the man not the ball
  3. play the man, not the ball
  4. play the mischief with
  5. play the Nazi card
  6. play the odds
  7. play the ponies
  8. play the pronoun game
  9. play the race card
  10. play the same tape
  11. play the skin flute

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: play the odds (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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