Word.ws English Dictionary

playing hardball

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

Meaning of play hardball

Verb

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

  1. (idiomatic, informal) To use every means possible to achieve a goal, especially in disregarding the harm caused.
    • He was more than willing to extend the terms of the loan, but his boss decided to play hardball and demanded a balloon payment.
  2. (idiomatic, informal) To act rough and ruthless, especially in business or politics.
    • So you wanna play hardball?

Questions about playing hardball

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

Words near playing hardball in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: playing hardball (page history and authors); play hardball (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.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “playing hardball.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/playing_hardball. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.