roleplay
/ˈrəʊl.pleɪ/US/ˈroʊl.pleɪ/
roleplay verb: to act out a scenario or fantasy with another person or other people.
Verb
roleplay (third-person singular simple present roleplays, present participle roleplaying, simple past and past participle roleplayed)
- To act out a scenario or fantasy with another person or other people.
- To spice up their sex life, they like to roleplay.
- To act as a character as part of a fantasy, especially with a group.
- He likes to roleplay a vampire.
- The particular person roleplaying Beatty in that battle suggested summarily executing Seymour and dumping him overboard.2018 October 17, Drachinifel, 30:18 from the start, in Last Ride of the High Seas Fleet - Battle of Texel 1918, archived from the original on 04 Aug 2022
- To act out a social role, especially one that one does not truly belong to.
- He talks like he's some scrappy bootstrap entrepreneur but he's just some old money rich kid roleplaying.
- Realizing that she was an 'other' not only as a black woman but also as a black lesbian, she struggles to fiind someplace where she and other black lesbians like herself could live out their existence without role-playing or conforming to the ideals that were prevalent in the bars at that time.1982 December 11, Catherine Joseph, “Breaking Barriers”, in Gay Community News, volume 10, number 21, page 10
Noun
roleplay (countable and uncountable, plural roleplays)
- The act or practice of roleplaying; an instance of roleplaying.
- Lesbian, 34, seeks lesbians who enjoy occasional anal sex and role plays. Light s/m ok too.1985 August 17, “Personal advertisement”, in Gay Community News, volume 13, number 6, page 13
- Roy: Let's do some roleplay, OK? Do you think that would be a good idea?
Moss: It helped me learn how to buy sandwiches.2008 November 21, Graham Linehan, The IT Crowd, Season 3, Episode 1
- The practice of roleplaying.
Synonyms of roleplay
Forms of roleplay
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | roleplays |
| present participle | roleplaying |
| past participle | roleplayed |
| past | roleplayed |
| alternative form | role play |
| alternative form | role-play |
| alternative form (dated) | rôle play |
| alternative form (dated) | rôle-play |
| alternative form (dated) | rôleplay |
| Noun | |
| plural | roleplays |
Origin of roleplay
From role (“expected behavior”) + play (“perform, act”).
Questions about roleplay
- What does roleplay mean?
- Roleplay means to act out a scenario or fantasy with another person or other people.
- What part of speech is roleplay?
- Roleplay can be a verb or a noun.
- How do you pronounce roleplay?
- Roleplay is pronounced /ˈrəʊl.pleɪ/ (UK).
- What is the past tense of roleplay?
- The past tense of roleplay is roleplayed.
Words near roleplay in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: roleplay (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:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Back ache-roleplay.wav.
Cite this entry: “roleplay.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/roleplay. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.