To use any exercise for pleasure or recreation; to do something not as a task or for profit, but for amusement; as, to play at cricket. The people sat down to eat and to drink, and rose up to play. Exodus 32:6.

To sport; to frolick; to frisk. The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to day, Had he thy reason, would he skip and play?

To toy; to act with levity.

To trifle; to act wantonly and thoughtlessly. Men are apt to play with their healths and their lives as they do with their clothes.

To do something fanciful; to give a fanciful turn to; as, to play upon words.

To make sport, or practice sarcastic merriment. I would make use of it rather to play upon those I despise, than trifle with those I love.

To mock; to practice illusion. Art thou alive, Or is it fancy plays upon our eyesight?

To contend in a game; as, to play at cards or dice; to play for diversion; to play for money.

To practice a trick or deception. His mother played false with a smith.

To perform on an instrument of music; as, to play on a flute, a violin or a harpsichord. Play, my friend, and charm the charmer.

To move, or to move with alternate dilatation and contraction. The heart beats, the blood circulates, the lungs play.

To operate; to act. The engines play against a fire.

To move irregularly; to wanton. Ev’n as the waving sedges play with wind. The setting sun . Plays on their shining arms and burnish’d helmets. All fame is foreign, but of true desert, Plays round the head, but comes not to the heart.

To act a part on the stage; to personate a character. A lord will hear you play to-night.

To represent a standing character. Courts are theaters where some men play.

To act in any particular character; as, to play the fool; to play the woman; to play the man.

To move in any manner; to move one way and another; as any part of a machine.

To put in action or motion; as, to play cannon or a fire-engine.

To use an instrument of music; as, to play the flute or the organ.

To act a sportive part or character. Nature here . Wanton’d as in her prime, and play’d at will PLA Y. Her virgin fancies.