playbook
[pley-boo k]
- (in Elizabethan drama) the script of a play, used by the actors as an acting text.
- a book containing the scripts of one or more plays.
- Football. a notebook containing descriptions of all the plays and strategies used by a team, often accompanied by diagrams, issued to players for them to study and memorize before the season begins.
- Informal. any plan or set of strategies, as for outlining a campaign in business or politics.
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Origin of playbook
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Related Words
dialogue, scenario, manuscript, text, book, article, copy, libretto, words, typescript, lines, playbookExamples from the Web for playbook
Contemporary Examples
That was the playbook the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth used to discredit then-Sen.
No shame and desperation to drive a teammate to hand over money or the playbook to a blackmailer.
Intentionally or not, the Putin regime has followed the Berlin 1936 playbook quite closely for Sochi.
Putin’s Sochi and Hitler’s Berlin: The Love Affair Between Dictators and the Olympic Games.Garry Kasparov
February 7, 2014
He took a page out of the Bush playbook or, dare I say it, even the Cheney one.
Repeatedly, de Blasio said Lhota was borrowing a page “from the Republican playbook” and favoring “trickle-down economics.”
New York City Mayoral Debate Features Strong Sparring but No KnockoutDavid Freedlander
October 16, 2013
Historical Examples
I say unto thee a playhouse is the school for the old dragon, and a playbook the primer of Belzebub.
Wild OatsJohn O'Keeffe
The fable, as set forth in the playbook, proved to be unworthy of the scenes and characters: what fable would not?
The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9Robert Louis Stevenson
I should like to see existing a playbook of “Hamlet” which has been altered and shortened by a joint board of actors and scholars.
Shakespeare in the TheatreWilliam Poel
Each had a playbook beside his plate, and they were apparently studying their parts for the morning performance.
Yellow-Cap and Other Fairy-Stories For ChildrenJulian Hawthorne
playbook
- a book containing a range of possible set plays
- a notional range of possible tactics in any sphere of activity
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Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Word Origin and History for playbook
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper