Word.ws English Dictionary

played the race card

played the race card is the simple past and past participle of play the race card.

Meaning of play the race card

Verb

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

  1. (derogatory, idiomatic, often) To assert that race or racism is involved in a situation, especially in order to exploit racist or antiracist attitudes.
    • The defense played the race card, but Ito let them.1997, Mark Fuhrman, Murder in Brentwood, page 153

Questions about played the race card

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

Words near played the race card in the dictionary

  1. played the man, not the ball
  2. played the mischief with
  3. played the Nazi card
  4. played the odds
  5. played the ponies
  6. played the race card
  7. played the same tape
  8. played the skin flute
  9. played the something card
  10. played the system
  11. played the wag

Source and license

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