Play-play

adj, verb, slang

adj, verb, slang ·Uncommon ·College level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    To mess around, to play around; to take things lightly. Manglish, Singlish, invariable

    "Don't play-play hor."

Adjective
  1. 1
    Fake, toy, make-believe South-Africa, colloquial

    "They’re at the age when they want more than just a play-play watch."

Example

More examples

"[…] Don’t play play... This is not your basic luxury condo. […]"

Etymology

Etymology 1

Reduplication of play, influenced by Malay grammar (Malay main-main), or a calque of Mandarin 玩玩 (wánwan).

Etymology 2

Reduplication of play, possibly influenced by Afrikaans speel-speel.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.