Word.ws English Dictionary

plays one against another

plays one against another is the third-person singular simple present indicative 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 plays one against another

What is plays one against another the third-person singular simple present indicative of?
Plays one against another is the third-person singular simple present indicative of play one against another.

Words near plays one against another in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: plays 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.

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