player
Pluralplayers
- 1A person who takes part in a game or sport, including a video game.
Every player must check in with the referee before kickoff.
Five players were named to the all-star roster this season.
UsageThe sport or game usually comes first: a tennis player, a chess player, a player for Chelsea.
Similarcompetitor
- 2A participant in something; one who is actively involved in an activity or situation.
She became a key player in the negotiations.
Several major players entered the renewable energy market last year.
UsageOften with a word of size or importance: a key player, a major player, a big player in the market.
Similarparticipant, figure
Note
The game metaphor carried into business and politics: a player here is anyone with a real part in the action, whether a politician or a whole company. It names institutions like Network Rail as comfortably as it names people.
- 3A device or computer program for playing recorded sound or video.
Before the long flight, he loaded his old MP3 player with podcasts and a few audiobooks.
Most modern players support a wide range of file formats.
Note
Electronics names the machine after its job, usually with the format first: a CD player, a DVD player, an MP3 player. Software doing that job on a computer or phone is a player too (a media player, a video player). Once the device is clear from context, the bare word is ordinary: put the disc in the player.
- 4A person who performs on a musical instrument.
A good jazz bass player knows when to stay in the background and let the soloist shine.
Skilled players can sight-read complex scores at first glance.
UsageUsually the instrument comes first: a piano player, a horn player; it is a plainer word than pianist or cellist.
Similarmusician, instrumentalist, performer
Less common meanings
- 5A person who pursues casual romantic encounters rather than a committed, long-term relationship.
She stopped returning his calls once she realized he was a player juggling three girlfriends at once.
Dating apps are full of players looking for nothing serious.
UsageUsually disapproving: calling someone a player is more often a warning than praise.
Similarphilanderer, seducer, libertine, rake
Note
The idiom play the field sums up this sense: a player is simply one who plays (play + -er), and the word keeps the hint that affection is a game. Stevie Nicks plays on that link in Fleetwood Mac's "Dreams" (1977), where a player's love lasts only as long as the game does. It belongs to informal speech, and unlike the sexual-play sense it names a habit of courtship rather than a particular practice.
- 6A person who gambles, especially at cards or other games of chance.
A smart player at the roulette table sets a limit before the first bet and walks away once it is gone.
Casinos reward their biggest players with free rooms and meals.
UsageNeutral, even polite, where gambler can sound disapproving. Size words are common: a big player, a high-stakes player.
Similargambler, bettor, punter
Note
At cards it shades into someone playing a game, since a poker player both plays a game and bets on it.
- 7An actor who performs a role in a dramatic play.
The touring company was small, so each player had to take two or three roles and change costumes quickly between scenes.
Traveling players once performed in inn yards and town squares.
UsageNow sounds literary or deliberately theatrical; in everyday speech, actor is the usual word.
Note
The common word for actors in Shakespeare's day, and one he turned into a metaphor in As You Like It: "All the world's a stage, / And all the men and women merely players."
- 8Anyone or anything that plays, in any sense of the verb 'play', such as a child playing with toys.
The kitten is a tireless player, chasing anything that rolls along the floor.
The festival drew players of every kind, from musicians to gamers.
Note
The umbrella sense that the others narrow: play plus -er, inherited through Middle English pleyer from Old English pleġere, which already meant "player, athlete, wrestler." Because "one that plays" covers people and things alike, the word can name a footballer, an actor or a machine. Context, or a word in front such as Minecraft or piano, usually does the narrowing.
Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 3 facts
- Player is equivalent to play plus the agent suffix -er. en.wiktionary.org
- Player was inherited through Middle English pleyer from Old English pleġere. en.wiktionary.org
- Old English pleġere meant player, athlete and wrestler. en.wiktionary.org
- 9A playful person without serious aims; an idler or trifler.
Similardilettante, trifler, idler, dabbler
- 10A participant in a particular kind of sexual activity or scene.
- 11A mechanism that drives a self-playing piano or similar automatic musical instrument.
A Technical Treatise on Piano Player Mechanism" contains detailed description of the various types of interior and exterior players, embracing manual, pneumatic, automatic, mechanical and electric
1909, William Braid White, Regulation and Repair of Piano and Player Mechanism
Practice
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Origin
From Middle English pleyer, from Old English pleġere ("player, athlete, wrestler"), which goes back to Proto-West Germanic. It is simply "play" plus the suffix "-er."
Checked 5 Nov 2026 · 5 facts
- Player derives from Middle English pleyer. en.wiktionary.org
- The Middle English word derives from Old English pleġere. en.wiktionary.org
- Old English pleġere meant player, athlete or wrestler. en.wiktionary.org
- The word goes back to Proto-West Germanic. en.wiktionary.org
- Player is morphologically equivalent to play plus the suffix -er. en.wiktionary.org