playground
noun
Simple meaning
Yard made up of an outdoor area for children's play.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
playgrowndSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈpleɪɡɹaʊnd
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
outdoors
Yard consisting of an outdoor area for children's play
outdoors
A large open space for children to play in, usually having dedicated play equipment (such as swings and slides).
figuratively
Any physical or metaphysical space in which a person or organization has free rein to do as they please.
programming
A sandbox for testing calls to an application programming interface.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B2 · Upper Intermediate
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Typical Use
- Neutral / general English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Yard consisting of an outdoor area for children's play
Used this way, playground is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use playground
- “Children laughed and played joyfully on the school playground.”
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
Ball used in playing softball.
Plaything consisting of a sloping chute down which children can slide.
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
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What Does It Mean Here?
Words can change meaning depending on context.
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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.