game

noun

1. 1

   A playful or competitive activity. A playful activity that may be unstructured; an amusement or pastime.

   Being a child is all fun and games.

2. 2

   A playful or competitive activity. An activity described by a set of rules, especially for the purpose of entertainment, often competitive or having an explicit goal.

   Games in the classroom can make learning fun.

   Joshua: Shall we play a game? David: ... Love to. How about Global Thermonuclear War? Joshua: Wouldn't you prefer a good game of chess? David: Later. Let's play Global Thermonuclear War. Joshua: Fine.

3. 3

   A playful or competitive activity. A school subject during which sports are practised.

   From time to time tracksuited boys ran past them, with all the deadly purpose and humourless concentration of those who enjoyed Games.

4. 4

   A playful or competitive activity. A particular instance of playing a game.

   Sally won the game.

   They can turn the game around in the second half.

   “I'm through with all pawn-games,” I laughed. “Come, let us have a game of lansquenet. Either I will take a farewell fall out of you or you will have your sevenfold revenge”.

5. 5

   A playful or competitive activity. Part of a set during which one player continuously serves (at least four rallies must be won to win a game, at least six games must be won to win the set).

   Game, set and match!

6. 6

   A playful or competitive activity. That which is gained, such as the stake in a game.

7. 7

   A playful or competitive activity. The number of points necessary to win a game.

   In short whist, five points are game, while in in table tennis game is 21 points.

   See also: for the win

8. 8

   A playful or competitive activity. In some games, a point awarded to the player whose cards add up to the largest sum.

9. 9

   A playful or competitive activity. The equipment that enables such activity, particularly as packaged under a title.

   Some of the games in the closet we have on the computer as well.

10. 10

    A playful or competitive activity. One's manner, style, or performance in playing a game.

    Study can help your game of chess.

    Hit the gym if you want to toughen up your game.

    I played golf with her that same afternoon. She lost eight balls, I remember. Eight. I had a terrible time getting her to at least open her eyes when she took a swing at the ball. I improved her game immensely, though.

11. 11

    informalA field of gainful activity, as an industry or profession.

    When it comes to making sales, John is the best in the game.

    He's in the securities game somehow.

12. 12

    informalA field of gainful activity, as an industry or profession. The music industry.

    The rapper bragged about how he ran the game.

13. 13

    figurativeSomething that resembles a game with rules, despite not being designed.

    In the game of life, you may find yourself playing the waiting game far too often.

    I ſee you ſtand like Grey-hounds in the ſlips, / Straying vpon the Start. The Game’s afoot:

    “I'm through with all pawn-games,” I laughed. “Come, let us have a game of lansquenet. Either I will take a farewell fall out of you or you will have your sevenfold revenge”.

    Hidden behind thickets of acronyms and gorse bushes of detail, a new great game is under way across the globe. Some call it geoeconomics, but it's geopolitics too.

14. 14

    An exercise simulating warfare, whether computerized or involving human participants.

15. 15

    A questionable or unethical practice in pursuit of a goal.

    You want to borrow my credit card for a week? What's your game?

    Your murderous game is nearly up.

    It was obviously Lord Macaulay's game to blacken the greatest literary champion of the cause he had set himself to attack.

16. 16

    Wild animals hunted for food.

    The forest has plenty of game.

17. 17

    A flock of swans, especially as kept for hunting purposes (or, originally, a group of any animals kept for such purpose).

    A game of swans flew there and the water and the shore beneath were fouled with their greenwhite slime.

18. 18

    informalThe ability to seduce or woo someone, usually by strategy.

    He didn't get anywhere with her because he had no game.

    She's strange, so strange, but I didn't complain / She said yes to me when I ran my game

19. 19

    archaicLovemaking, flirtation.

20. 20

    slangProstitution. (Now chiefly in on the game.)

    ſet them downe, / For ſlottiſh ſpoyles of opportunitie; / And daughters of the game.

    [H]e put spurs to his horse, and just in the twilight reached the gate, where, at that time, there happened to be two ladies of the game [translating mugeres moças], who being on their journey to Seville, with the carriers, had chanced to take up their night's lodging in this place.

21. 21

    slangMastery; the ability to excel at something.

    What is game? Who got game? / Where's the game in life, behind the game behind the game / I got game, she's got game / We got game, they got game, he got game

    In the contemporary arts of the academic contact zone, I say African American students got game!

    My dad had game at that kind of thing, and I spent long periods as a child watching him.

22. 22

    archaicDiversion, entertainment.

    To ſet the minde on the racke of long meditation (you ſay) is a torment: to follow the ſwift foote of your hound alday long, hath no wearineſſe: what would you ſay of him that finds better game in his ſtudie, then you in the fielde, and would account your diſport his puniſhment? ſuch there are, though you doubt and wonder.

23. 23

    Variant of video gameA playful or competitive activity. Ellipsis of video game.

    There’s a sense here, as well as in games such as Limbo, that we’re making ourselves experience our children’s reality, trapped in the chaos that the adults have created.

adjective

1. 1

   Willing and able to participate.

   "[…] But what’s this long face about, Mr. Starbuck; wilt thou not chase the white whale? art not game for Moby Dick?”

   One Friday when I jumped into my barber’s chair to get a trim, she suggested I try a jheri curl. I was game, despite the fact that most of the women I knew hated jheri curls on men and called men who wore them “bamas,” a term short for Alabamas, which meant real country.

   Some of Grimsby’s other (extraordinarily up-to-date) targets include Donald Trump and Daniel Radcliffe, whose fates here are too breath-catchingly cruel to spoil, and also the admirably game Strong, whose character is beset by a constant stream of humiliations that hit with the force of a jet of…well, you’ll see.

2. 2

   That shows a tendency to continue to fight against another animal, despite being wounded, often severely.

3. 3

   Persistent, especially in senses similar to the above.

verb

1. 1

   To gamble.

   an impressive protest against gaming, swearing, and all immoral practices which might forfeit divine aid in the great struggle for National Independence

2. 2

   To play card games, board games, or video games.

   “The first few days after getting here are weird. It’s a version of cold turkey because you’ve been gaming around the clock and suddenly, nothing. […]”

3. 3

   To exploit loopholes in a system or bureaucracy in a way which defeats or nullifies the spirit of the rules in effect, usually to obtain a result which otherwise would be unobtainable.

   We'll bury them in paperwork, and game the system.

   A large batch of online trolls have gamed a web contest that promises a Taylor Swift performance at any school in the US. The target? Horace Mann School for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing.

   “Amazon risks betraying the trust millions of customers place in the Amazon’s Choice badge by allowing its endorsement to be all too easily gamed,” said Which?’s Natalie Hitchins.

   It is an example of what real entrepreneurship can do on the railway, but sadly there are not many other examples. Most of the private sector businesses in rail are simply 'gaming' the system, trying to outdo or outthink the regulator and the Government in order to generate profit.

4. 4

   slangTo perform premeditated seduction strategy.

   Returning briefly to his journalistic persona to interview Britney Spears, he finds himself gaming her, and she gives him her phone number.

   A business associate of mine at the time, George Wu, sat across the way, gaming a stripper the way I taught him.

   How did Amanda know she wasn’t getting gamed? Well, she didn’t. “I would wonder, ‘Is he saying stuff to other girls that he says to me?’ We did everything we could to cut it off […] yet we somehow couldn’t.”

adjective

1. 1

   Injured, lame.

   You come with me and we'll have a cozy dinner and a pleasant talk together, and by that time your game ankle will carry you home very nicely, I am sure."

   He was done for, all right. I took out my six-shooter and aimed right between his eyes. He kicked once, sort of leaped—or tried to, and then lay still. I stood there a minute, to see if he had to have another. He was so game that, some way, I didn’t want to give him more than he needed.

Forms

plural

games

comparative

gamer, more game

superlative

gamest, most game

past tense

gamed

past participle

gamed

present participle

gaming

third person singular

games