playoff
Pluralplayoffs
- 1A short series of games played to decide a league's champion.
The Bulls were knocked out in the second round of the playoffs.
Only the top eight teams in each conference earn a playoff spot.
Similarpostseason
Note
In American sport the playoffs are where a season is decided, and the word mostly lives in the plural: a team goes out in the playoffs or fights its way into them. Before another noun it stays singular, as in a playoff spot or a playoff game.
- 2A deciding game at the end of a series, played when a tie must be broken.
Tied for first after 162 games, the two clubs met in a one-game playoff to decide the division.
Their six-game match ended three games each, and the champion kept her title by winning the playoff.
Similartiebreaker, decider
Note
The noun is made from the phrasal verb play off: two sides that finish level play off the tie, and the deciding game takes its name from that action. Every other use of the word, from league series to stage music, grows from the same verb.
- 3A short series of games held to decide which team takes the last promotion place in a higher league.
The side scraped into the playoffs on the last day of the season, chasing a place in the top flight.
A playoff win at the end of May would see them promoted alongside the top two clubs.
Note
A British fan hears promotion in this word, not a title: the top clubs go up on their own record, and the playoffs settle who joins them. Ask about the playoffs in Britain and you get talk of climbing a division; ask in America and you get the championship series.
- 4A short piece of background music played during a scene change in a stage musical, usually repeating a song from the scene just ended.
As the lights dimmed on the kitchen scene, the orchestra slipped into a playoff of the duet the couple had just sung.
The music director cut eight bars from the playoff so the scene change would not drag.
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Origin
Formed from the verb phrase play off; it can also be read as play + -off.