Word.ws English Dictionary

plays the race card

plays the race card is the third-person singular simple present indicative of play the race card.

Meaning of play the race card

Verb

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

  1. (derogatory, idiomatic, often) To assert that race or racism is involved in a situation, especially in order to exploit racist or antiracist attitudes.
    • The defense played the race card, but Ito let them.1997, Mark Fuhrman, Murder in Brentwood, page 153

Questions about plays the race card

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

Words near plays the race card in the dictionary

  1. plays the man, not the ball
  2. plays the mischief with
  3. plays the Nazi card
  4. plays the odds
  5. plays the ponies
  6. plays the race card
  7. plays the same tape
  8. plays the skin flute
  9. plays the something card
  10. plays the system
  11. plays the wag

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: plays the race card (page history and authors); play the race card (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: “plays the race card.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/plays_the_race_card. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.