Word.ws English Dictionary

played gooseberry

played gooseberry is the simple past and past participle of play gooseberry.

Meaning of play gooseberry

Verb

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

  1. (UK, dated, slang) To be an unwanted third party accompanying two lovers, to serve as a chaperon.
    • "Well, new experiences are broadening. Come along, and you'll be able to sympathize with all poor souls who have to play gooseberry often.1915, Lucy Maud Montgomery, “In the Park”, in Anne of the Island
    Synonyms:
    do gooseberry

Questions about played gooseberry

What is played gooseberry the simple past and past participle of?
Played gooseberry is the simple past and past participle of play gooseberry.

Words near played gooseberry in the dictionary

  1. played for love
  2. played for time
  3. played full
  4. played games
  5. played God
  6. played gooseberry
  7. played hardball
  8. played havoc
  9. played hell with
  10. played hob with
  11. played hooky

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: played gooseberry (page history and authors); play gooseberry (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: “played gooseberry.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/played_gooseberry. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.