Word.ws English Dictionary

playing God

playing God is the present participle and gerund of play God.

Meaning of play God

Verb

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

  1. (derogatory, intransitive, usually) To act in ways commonly associated with or reserved for God, especially by scientific means, such as exercising omnipotence or excessive control over life and nature.
    • With all due respect, professor, do you really think that playing God and researching human immortality is a wise idea?

Questions about playing God

What is playing God the present participle and gerund of?
Playing God is the present participle and gerund of play God.

Words near playing God in the dictionary

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

Source and license

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