Word.ws English Dictionary

plays Old Gooseberry

plays Old Gooseberry is the third-person singular simple present indicative 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 plays Old Gooseberry

What is plays Old Gooseberry the third-person singular simple present indicative of?
Plays Old Gooseberry is the third-person singular simple present indicative of play Old Gooseberry.

Words near plays Old Gooseberry in the dictionary

  1. plays Nostradamus
  2. plays number two
  3. plays of color
  4. plays of words
  5. plays off
  6. plays Old Gooseberry
  7. plays Old Harry
  8. plays Old Harry with
  9. plays on
  10. plays on someone's heartstrings
  11. plays on words

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: plays 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.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “plays Old Gooseberry.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/plays_old_gooseberry. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.