noun ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   A book containing the text of a play or plays.

   "Near-synonym: play"

2. 2
   a scheme or set of strategies for conducting a business campaign or a political campaign wordnet
3. 3
   A book of games and amusements for children.

   "Near-synonym: gamebook"

4. 4
   a book containing the scripts of one or more dramatic plays wordnet
5. 5
   A book of strategies (plays) for use in American football (and by extension other sports or disciplines). US

Show 2 more definitions

6. 6
   a notebook containing descriptions and diagrams of the plays that a team has practiced (especially an American football team) wordnet
7. 7
   A book or (especially) any set of commonly employed tactics, strategies, and tips. figuratively

   "Near-synonym: cookbook"

Synonyms

All synonyms

best sellerbookbound bookclassiccoloring bookcontinuity

Example

More examples

"The coach's playbook had more running plays than last week's game."

Etymology

From play + book.

Related phrases

rip a page out of someone's playbooktake a page out of someone's playbookamerican football

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