playing
noun
Simple meaning
An occasion on which something, such as a song or show, is played.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
playingSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈpleɪɪŋ
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
gerund of play
An occasion on which something, such as a song or show, is played.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- A1 · Beginner (estimated)
- Frequency
- Very Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: (gerund of play) An occasion on which something, such as a song or show, is played.
Used this way, playing 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 playing
- “The children are playing happily in the park right now.”noun
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
Participate in games or sport.
Word family
Words built from the same root.
A person who participates in or is skilled at some game.
Full of fun and high spirits.
Capable of or suitable for being played or played on.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A piece of land prepared for playing a game.
One of a pack of cards that are used to play card games.
The circumstances under which competition occurs.
The time during which play proceeds.
Playing a set of bells that are (usually) hung in a tower.
Related words
Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.
Ball used in playing softball.
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.