Word.ws English Dictionary

played it safe

played it safe is the simple past and past participle 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

Questions about played it safe

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

Words near played it safe in the dictionary

  1. played it cheap
  2. played it close to the hip
  3. played it cool
  4. played it for all it's worth
  5. played it pear-shaped
  6. played it safe
  7. played it straight
  8. played like
  9. played merry havoc with
  10. played merry hell with
  11. played nice

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: played it 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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