Play vs Gam - What's the difference?

As verbs the difference between play and gam

is that play is (lb) to act in a manner such that one has fun; to engage in activities expressly for the purpose of recreation or entertainment while gam is (nautical) to make a social visit on another ship at sea.

As nouns the difference between play and gam

is that play is activity for amusement only, especially among the young while gam is (slang) a person's leg, especially an attractive woman's leg or gam can be (collective noun used to refer to) a group of whales, or rarely also of porpoises; a pod or gam can be .

play

English

Verb

(en verb)

(lb) To act in a manner such that one has fun; to engage in activities expressly for the purpose of recreation or entertainment.

*2001 , Annabelle Sabloff, Reordering the Natural World , Univ. of Toronto Press, p.83:

*:A youngstergo on vacation, play in the same way that he did with his friends, and so on.

*2003 , Anne-Nelly Perret-Clermont et al. (eds.), Joining Society: Social Interaction and Learning in Adolescence and Youth , Cambridge Univ. Press, p.52:

*:We had to play for an hour, so that meant that we didn't have time to play and joke around.

(lb) To perform in (a sport); to participate in (a game).

#(lb) To compete against, in a game.

#*{{quote-news, year=2011, date=November 12, work=BBC Sport

, title= International friendly: England 1-0 Spain , passage=England will not be catapulted among the favourites for Euro 2012 as a result of this win, but no victory against Spain is earned easily and it is right they take great heart from their efforts as they now prepare to play Sweden at Wembley on Tuesday.}}

(label) To take part in amorous activity; to make love, fornicate; to have sex.

*1590 , (Edmund Spenser), (The Faerie Queene) , II.iv:

*:Her proper face / I not descerned in that darkesome shade, / But weend it was my loue, with whom he playd .

(lb) To act as the indicated role, especially in a performance.

*{{quote-magazine, year=2013, month=May-June, author= Katrina G. Claw

, title= Rapid Evolution in Eggs and Sperm , volume=101, issue=3, magazine=(American Scientist) , passage=In plants, the ability to recognize self from nonself plays an important role in fertilization, because self-fertilization will result in less diverse offspring than fertilization with pollen from another individual.}}

To produce music or theatre.

# To produce music.

#*2007 , Dan Erlewine, Guitar Player Repair Guide (ISBN 0879309210), page 220:

#*:If your guitar plays well on fretted strings but annoys you on the open ones, the nut's probably worn out.

# To produce music using a musical instrument.

# To produce music (or a specified song or musical style) using (a specified musical instrument).

# To use a device to watch or listen to the indicated recording.

# to be shown.

# To perform in or at; to give performances in or at.

#*2008 , My Life: From Normandy to Hockeytown (ISBN 0966412087), p.30:

#*:I got a hold of Louis (Satchmo) Armstrong's agent and I explained to him on the phone that, "I know you're playing' London on Wednesday night. Why don't you come and ' play the Arena in Windsor on Saturday night?"

#(lb) To act or perform (a play).

(lb) To behave in a particular way.

#(lb) Contrary to fact, to give an appearance of being.

#*(rfdate) Sir (Walter Scott) (1771-1832)

#*:Thou canst play the rational if thou wilt.

#*1985 , Sharon S. Brehm, Intimate Relationships :

#*:Playing hard to get is not the same as slamming the door in someone's face.

#*1996 , Michael P. Malone, James J Hill: Empire Builder of the Northwest :

#*:Now, surveying his final link, he had the nice advantage of being able to play coy with established port cities that desperately wanted his proven railroad.

#*2003 , John U. Ogbu, Black American Students in an Affluent Suburb: A Study of Academic Disengagement , p.194:

#*:Instead, they played dumb, remained silent, and did their classwork.

#(lb) To act with levity or thoughtlessness; to trifle; to be careless.

#*(rfdate) Sir (1628–1699):

#*:Men are apt to play with their healths.

#(lb) To act; to behave; to practice deception.

#*(rfdate) (William Shakespeare) (1564-1616):

#*:His mother played false with a smith.

#(lb) To bring into sportive or wanton action; to exhibit in action; to execute.

#*(rfdate) (John Milton) (1608-1674):

#*:Nature here / Wantoned as in her prime, and played at will / Her virgin fancies.

#*:The Bat—they called him the Bat.. He'd never been in stir, the bulls had never mugged him, he didn't run with a mob, he played a lone hand, and fenced his stuff so that even the fence couldn't swear he knew his face.

(lb) To move in any manner; especially, to move regularly with alternate or reciprocating motion; to operate.

*(rfdate) (1671-1743):

*:The heart beats, the blood circulates, the lungs play .

*:The colonel and his sponsor made a queer contrast: Greystone [the sponsor] long and stringy, with a face that seemed as if a cold wind was eternally playing on it.

(lb) To move gaily; to disport.

*(rfdate) (William Shakespeare) (1564-1616):

*:even as the waving sedges play with wind

*(rfdate) (Joseph Addison) (1672-1719):

*:The setting sun / Plays on their shining arms and burnished helmets.

*(rfdate) (Alexander Pope) (1688-1744):

*:All fame is foreign but of true desert, / Plays round the head, but comes not to the heart.

(lb) To put in action or motion.

(lb) To keep in play, as a hooked fish, in order to land it.

Noun

Activity for amusement only, especially among the young.

* Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

She was fond of all boys' plays , and greatly preferred cricket

(uncountable) Similar activity, in young animals, as they explore their environment and learn new skills.

(uncountable, ethology) "Repeated, incompletely functional behavior differing from more serious versions ..., and initiated voluntarily when ... in a low-stress setting."

The conduct, or course of a game.

(countable) An individual's performance in a sport or game.

(countable) (turn-based games ) An action carried out when it is one's turn to play.

(countable) A literary composition, intended to be represented by actors impersonating the characters and speaking the dialogue.

(countable) A theatrical performance featuring actors.

We saw a two-act play in the theatre.

(countable) A major move by a business.

(countable) A geological formation that contains an accumulation or prospect of hydrocarbons or other resources.

(uncountable) The extent to which a part of a mechanism can move freely.

No wonder the fanbelt is slipping: there’s too much play in it.

Too much play in a steering wheel may be dangerous.

(uncountable, informal) Sexual role-playing.

* 1996 , Sabrina P Ramet, Gender reversals and gender cultures

The rarity of male domination in fantasy play is readily explained.

* 1996 , "toptigger", (on Internet newsgroup alt.personals.spanking.punishment )

Palm Springs M seeks sane F 4 safe bdsm play

* 2013 , Rachel Kramer Bussel, Best Bondage Erotica 2014

There were none of the usual restrictions on public nudity or sexual interaction in the club environment. Still, the night was young, and as he'd made his way to the bar to order Mistress Ramona a gin and tonic, he'd seen little in the way of play .

* 2014 , Jiri T. Servant, Facts About Bondage - Bondage Guide For Beginners

This type of play allows some people to relax and enjoy being given pleasure without having to think about giving pleasure back at the same time.

(countable) A button that, when pressed, causes media to be played.

Synonyms

* (literary composition) drama * See also

Derived terms

* airplay * all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy * at play * bloodplay * child's play * close of play * double play * downplay * fair play * fireplay * force play * foreplay * foul play * grandstand play * learn to play * long play * nativity play * mystery play * outdoor play * passion play * pissplay * playact/play-act * play about * play along * play around * play back * play ball * playbill * playboy * play by ear * play by play, play-by-play * play date, playdate * play dead * play doctor * playdough * play down * play dumb * player * play fair * play fast and loose * play fight/play-fight/playfight * play for love * playful * play games * playground * play hardball * play hard to get * play hob with * play hooky * play house * playhouse * play in * play it by ear * play it safe * play lunch * playmate * play money * playoff/play-off/play off * play Old Harry * play on * play one against another * play one's cards right * play on words * playout/play out * playpen * play possum * playroom * playschool * play second fiddle * play silly buggers * play someone like a fiddle * playsuit * play the angles * play the devil * play the field * play the fool * play the hand one is dealt * play the ponies * play the race card * play the same tape * play the white man * plaything * playtime * play to the gallery * play to win * play truant * play up * play upon * playwear * play with * play with fire * play with oneself * playwright * plug-and-play * power play * quad play * radio play * rain stopped play * roleplay/role play/role-play * screen play/screenplay * shadow play * squeeze play * triple play * turnabout is fair play * two can play that game * war play * when the cat's away the mice will play * word play/wordplay

Statistics

* 1000 English basic words ----

gam

English

Etymology 1

From (etyl)

Noun

(en noun)

(slang) A person's leg, especially an attractive woman's leg.

* 2010 , Home Swell Home: Designing Your Dream Pad (ISBN 0743446356), page 19:

Make the salesclerk blush by flashing some gam and asking him to mix a bucket in your flesh tone.

* 2012 September 10, (Ariel Levy), "The Space In Between", in The New Yorker :

The women's-liberation movement of the late sixties and the seventies – the so-called second wave of feminism – introduced Americans to the notion that their mothers and sisters and daughters ought not to be "objectified": that there was something wrong with reducing female people to boobs, gams , and beaver.

References

Etymology 2

Noun

(en noun)

(Collective noun used to refer to) a group of whales, or rarely also of porpoises; a pod.

* 1862 , Henry Theodore Cheever, The Whalemen's Adventures in the Southern Ocean , Darton & Hodge, page 116:

Upon getting into a "gam " of whales, this boat, together with that of one of the mates, pulled for a single whale that was seen at a distance from the others, and succeeded in getting square up to their victim unperceived.

* 1985 , Dennis Kyte, To the Heart of a Bear: The Last Elegant Bear (ISBN 067154781X):

Breakfast was interrupted as a gam of porpoises surrounded the Argyle , swaying in the foam and singing in gurgles and beeps.

* 2010 , Jack White, Mastery of Self Promotion (ISBN 0557339510), page 119:

Christmas day in 1998, we lived on the Pacific Ocean in Pacific Grove, California and watched a gam of whales breaching in the deep ultramarine water.

* (seemoreCites)

(by extension) A social gathering of whalers (whaling ships).

* 1851 , Herman Melville, Moby-Dick; or, The Whale , Harper and Brothers, chapter 53:

But what is a Gam'? You might wear out your index-finger running up and down the columns of dictionaries, and never find the word, Dr. Johnson never attained to that erudition; Noah Webster’s ark does not hold it. Nevertheless, this same expressive word has now for many years been in constant use among some fifteen thousand true born Yankees. Certainly, it needs a definition, and should be incorporated into the Lexicon. With that view, let me learnedly define it. ' Gam . NOUN—A social meeting of two (or more) Whaleships, generally on a cruising-ground; when, after exchanging hails, they exchange visits by boats’ crews, the two captains remaining, for the time, on board of one ship, and the two chief mates on the other.

* 1916 , Harry B. Turner, Nantucket's Early Telegraph Service'', in the ''Proceedings of the Nantucket Historical Association , page 50:

There is still that yearning for news from Nantucket that there was when the whale-ships stopped for a gam out in the far-distant Pacific Ocean

* 1997 , Gillies Ross, ?Margaret Penny, This Distant and Unsurveyed Country (ISBN 0773516743), page 14:

If time was available, whaling prospects poor, and the weather gentle, a gam might last all day and include tea and dinner.

* 2007 , Tom Chaffin, Sea of Gray: The Around-the-World Odyssey of the Confederate Raider Shenandoah (ISBN 0374707006), page 230:

Twice each year, the Russian Navy sent out such ships to provision Russian whalers in the Sea of Okhotsk. In sailing toward the supposed Russian ship, the Abigail ’s captain, Ebenezer Nye, was hoping for a gam with the ship's officers

Verb

(nautical) To make a social visit on another ship at sea.

* 2008 , Eric Jay Dolin, Leviathan: The History of Whaling in America (ISBN 0393066665), page 436:

Although most whalemen looked forward to gamming and enjoyed these ocean-borne gatherings, there were at least a few whalemen who either grew weary of them, or just weary of gamming so often with the same ships over and over.

* 2011 , Paul Schneider, The Enduring Shore: A History of Cape Cod (ISBN 0805067345), page 255:

This was early in the summer of 1820, after nearly a year at sea, and they had gammed the whaling ship Aurora, which had on board not only plenty of letters but some newspapers as well.

* 2014 , James Revell Carr, Hawaiian Music in Motion (ISBN 0252096525), page 181:

In chapter 2 we saw how gamming whalers sang songs that tied them to their homelands while emphasizing the transient, cosmopolitan nature of their work,

Etymology 3

From (etyl) .

Noun

(en noun)

(rfv-sense) .

* 1992 , Kenneth Darwin, Familia 1992: Ulster Geneological Review: Number 8 (ISBN 0901905569):

At some stage some gam of an official decided that Guihen should be translated to the English name Wynne.

References

Anagrams

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