play at sth
— phrasal verb with play uk/pleɪ/us/pleɪ/verb
to pretend to be a particular person or to do a particular thing, usually as a game:
The children were playing at Batman and Robin.
to do something for enjoyment or interest, or without much care and effort, rather than in a serious way or as a job:
She's only playing at being an actress - she's going off to law school next year.
More examples
- She's still playing at being a professional singer.
- He's not really interested in the kids, he's just playing at being the perfect father to impress his parents.
- The kids have been playing at Doctors and Nurses all afternoon.
- The classroom has a home corner where the children can play at being Mummies and Daddies.
- You can't just play at being a mother, it's a lifelong commitment.
Thesaurus: synonyms and related words
Faking & pretending
- a wolf in sheep's clothing idiom
- affect
- assume
- believe
- bluff
- changeling
- charlatan
- falsify
- feign
- fraud
- go through the motions idiom
- guise
- phoney
- play possum idiom
- play sth out
- play-acting
- pose as sb
- professed
- purport
- quack
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You can also find related words, phrases, and synonyms in the topics:
Celebrating & entertaining