playbook
Americannoun
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(in Elizabethan drama) the script of a play, used by the actors as an acting text.
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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.
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Informal. any plan or set of strategies, as for outlining a campaign in business or politics.
noun
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a book containing a range of possible set plays
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a notional range of possible tactics in any sphere of activity
Etymology
Origin of playbook
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The coaches were astonished at how quickly he picked up the playbook.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 25, 2026
Through her audacity and fierce self-belief, Osterberg was a prime mover in rewriting the playbook for women in British sport.
From BBC ● Jul. 23, 2026
“These are companies with a very well-established playbook for returning capital to shareholders, and they are sticking with it.”
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 21, 2026
Today, these AI-native companies—built from scratch with AI in their DNA—serve as the first trial of the management playbook for the agentic era.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 20, 2026
Later that night I snuck the playbook out of Diego’s bag and read the whole thing to see who the Jets and Sharks were.
From "We Were Here" by Matt De La Peña
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
