fair play

American  

noun

1. just and honorable treatment, action, or conduct.

   The political campaign was notably lacking in fair play.

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fair play British  

noun

1. an established standard of decency, honesty, etc

2. abidance by this standard

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fair play Idioms  

1. Conformity to established rules; upright conduct and equitable conditions. For example, The coach insists on fair play. Shakespeare used this idiom in King John (5:2): “According to the fair play of the world, let me have audience.” [Late 1500s] Also see turnabout is fair play.

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Etymology

Origin of fair play

First recorded in 1585–95

Example Sentences

Teams were tasked with illustrating the theme of fair play and Unwin said the sculpture she designed was "ridiculously complicated".

From BBC

Confronted with the rules of fair play, the reader was enjoined to solve the case alongside the detective, which required seeing through the author’s sleights of hand.

From The Wall Street Journal

Mr. Curran is an expert on Agatha Christie, who helped establish the rules of fair play by exploiting genre conventions that emerged during the 19th century, notably in Edgar Allan Poe’s stories featuring C. Auguste Dupin.

From The Wall Street Journal

Mr. Curran discusses two works in particular that helped tilt the balance in favor of fair play, both published in 1913.

From The Wall Street Journal

He thinks that readers are drawn to the genre chiefly for the contest, yet his preferred explanation cannot account for Holmes’s continued acclaim or the interwar popularity of writers who openly flouted fair play, such as Harry Stephen Keeler and James Corbett.

From The Wall Street Journal

Related Words

• civil rights
• coordination
• equal opportunity
• fairness
• identity
• impartiality
• parity
• tolerance