Word.ws English Dictionary

playing one against another

playing one against another is the present participle and gerund 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 playing one against another

What is playing one against another the present participle and gerund of?
Playing one against another is the present participle and gerund of play one against another.

Words near playing one against another in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: playing 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.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “playing one against another.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/playing_one_against_another. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.