"play politics" meaning in English

See play politics in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Forms: plays politics [present, singular, third-person], playing politics [participle, present], played politics [participle, past], played politics [past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|*}} play politics (third-person singular simple present plays politics, present participle playing politics, simple past and past participle played politics)
  1. (intransitive, idiomatic, derogatory) to act or say something according to political ambition, self-interest, and gamesmanship instead of moral conviction and altruism; to politick Tags: derogatory, idiomatic, intransitive
    Sense id: en-play_politics-en-verb-tq-KGZ9a Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries

Inflected forms

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  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "plays politics",
      "tags": [
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    },
    {
      "form": "playing politics",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
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    },
    {
      "form": "played politics",
      "tags": [
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        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "played politics",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
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  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "*"
      },
      "expansion": "play politics (third-person singular simple present plays politics, present participle playing politics, simple past and past participle played politics)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
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            "Entry maintenance"
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          "source": "w"
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          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
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          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "to act or say something according to political ambition, self-interest, and gamesmanship instead of moral conviction and altruism; to politick"
      ],
      "id": "en-play_politics-en-verb-tq-KGZ9a",
      "links": [
        [
          "derogatory",
          "derogatory"
        ],
        [
          "political",
          "political"
        ],
        [
          "ambition",
          "ambition"
        ],
        [
          "self-interest",
          "self-interest"
        ],
        [
          "gamesmanship",
          "gamesmanship"
        ],
        [
          "moral",
          "moral"
        ],
        [
          "conviction",
          "conviction"
        ],
        [
          "altruism",
          "altruism"
        ],
        [
          "politick",
          "politick"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(intransitive, idiomatic, derogatory) to act or say something according to political ambition, self-interest, and gamesmanship instead of moral conviction and altruism; to politick"
      ],
      "tags": [
        "derogatory",
        "idiomatic",
        "intransitive"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "play politics"
}
{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "plays politics",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "playing politics",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "played politics",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "played politics",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
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      },
      "expansion": "play politics (third-person singular simple present plays politics, present participle playing politics, simple past and past participle played politics)",
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    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English derogatory terms",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English idioms",
        "English intransitive verbs",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English verbs",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries"
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "to act or say something according to political ambition, self-interest, and gamesmanship instead of moral conviction and altruism; to politick"
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "derogatory",
          "derogatory"
        ],
        [
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        [
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        ],
        [
          "self-interest",
          "self-interest"
        ],
        [
          "gamesmanship",
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        ],
        [
          "moral",
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        ],
        [
          "conviction",
          "conviction"
        ],
        [
          "altruism",
          "altruism"
        ],
        [
          "politick",
          "politick"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(intransitive, idiomatic, derogatory) to act or say something according to political ambition, self-interest, and gamesmanship instead of moral conviction and altruism; to politick"
      ],
      "tags": [
        "derogatory",
        "idiomatic",
        "intransitive"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "play politics"
}

Download raw JSONL data for play politics meaning in English (1.5kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-03-13 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-03-02 using wiktextract (f074e77 and 633533e). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.