Word.ws English Dictionary

playing to

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

Meaning of play to

Verb

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

  1. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see play, to.
    • At the festival, the band played to 20,000 people.
  2. To act in a way most suitable to; to act in a way that best brings out (a quality, condition, etc.).
    • He played to his strengths tonight.
  3. To act in order to gain the attention or admiration of.
    • to play to the crowd

Questions about playing to

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

Words near playing to in the dictionary

  1. playing the wag
  2. playing the white man
  3. playing through
  4. playing time
  5. playing times
  6. playing to
  7. playing to the cheap seats
  8. playing to the gallery
  9. playing to win
  10. playing tricks
  11. playing up

Source and license

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