noun
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a toy
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a person regarded or treated as a toy
he thinks she is just his plaything
Etymology
Origin of plaything
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.
"Both the Royal Family and the governments of England and Wales have other things to think about, which are rather more pressing and important than a child's plaything," said Dr Jones.
From BBC • Nov. 17, 2025
Famously, he set a Barbie doll on fire to protest Greta Gerwig’s movie portraying the doll as a woman with agency, rather than a passive plaything.
From Salon • Jul. 7, 2025
But where “M3GAN” felt alive to the culty potential of a malevolent plaything, “Imaginary” skips the directive to entertain, coming off as stiff, pedestrian and dreary as a March space-filler can get.
From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 7, 2024
Here at the Walker Art Center, a weighty and ambitious exhibition reorients American audiences toward a generation of artists, writers and musicians for whom free expression was no plaything and no luxury.
From New York Times • Jan. 11, 2024
It had never occurred to him until then to think that literature was the best plaything that had ever been invented to make fun of people, as Alvaro demonstrated during one night of revels.
From "One Hundred Years of Solitude" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
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.
