playbook
noun
Simple meaning
A book of strategies for use in American football.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
playbuukSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈpleɪbʊk
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
USAmerican football
A book of strategies (plays) for use in American football (and by extension other sports or disciplines).
A book containing the scripts of one or more dramatic plays
“The 1963 playbook leaves out the whole first scene.”
originally usfigurative
A book or (especially) any set of commonly employed tactics, strategies, and tips.
A book containing the text of a play or plays.
A notebook containing descriptions and diagrams of the plays that a team has practiced (especially an American football team)
A book of games and amusements for children.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C2 · Proficient (estimated)
- Frequency
- Rare
- Typical Use
- Primarily written
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: (US, American football) A book of strategies (plays) for use in American football (and by extension other sports or disciplines).
Used this way, playbook is a word tied to one variety of English that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a sporting use: familiar to anyone who follows the game, and puzzling to anyone who does not.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Regional
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Uncommon in everyday speech
Where it naturally appears
- Sports
- News/reporting
- Everyday conversation
Usage note
Mainly used in American English, so it may read as unusual elsewhere.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use playbook
- “The 1963 playbook leaves out the whole first scene.”noun
- “They borrowed a page from the playbook of the opposition.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Book / notebook
Scheme
Other combinations
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.