Word.ws English Dictionary

playing Old Gooseberry

playing Old Gooseberry is the present participle and gerund of play Old Gooseberry.

Meaning of play Old Gooseberry

Verb

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

  1. (UK, archaic, idiomatic) To suddenly put a stop to a disturbance by force or threats.
  2. (UK, archaic, idiomatic) To play the devil; to make mischief.
    • I'll play old Gooseberry with the office, and make you glad to buy me out at a good high figure, if you try any of your tricks with me.1843–44, Charles Dickens, The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit
    Synonyms:
    play Old Harry

Questions about playing Old Gooseberry

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

Words near playing Old Gooseberry in the dictionary

  1. playing merry hell with
  2. playing nice
  3. playing Nostradamus
  4. playing number two
  5. playing off
  6. playing Old Gooseberry
  7. playing Old Harry
  8. playing Old Harry with
  9. playing on
  10. playing on someone's heartstrings
  11. playing one against another

Source and license

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