Word.ws English Dictionary

played one against another

played one against another is the simple past and past participle of play one against another.

Meaning of play one against another

Verb

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

  1. (idiomatic) To manipulate two persons into competing against one another in a way that benefits the person carrying out the manipulation.
    • You would expect that we would stick together more, but no way Pete! They lie and snitch on each other and so the system has even more control over us by playing us against each other.1989 December 10, Glenda Edwards, “They Can't Keep Me Away From My Stink”, in Gay Community News, volume 17, number 22, page 5

Questions about played one against another

What is played one against another the simple past and past participle of?
Played one against another is the simple past and past participle of play one against another.

Words near played one against another in the dictionary

  1. played Old Gooseberry
  2. played Old Harry
  3. played Old Harry with
  4. played on
  5. played on someone's heartstrings
  6. played one against another
  7. played one's cards right
  8. played one's cards well
  9. played one's guts out
  10. played one's hand right
  11. played one's part

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: played one against another (page history and authors); play one against another (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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