What's the difference between play and pretend?

Play


Definition:

  • (n.) To engage in sport or lively recreation; to exercise for the sake of amusement; to frolic; to spot.
  • (n.) To act with levity or thoughtlessness; to trifle; to be careless.
  • (n.) To contend, or take part, in a game; as, to play ball; hence, to gamble; as, he played for heavy stakes.
  • (n.) To perform on an instrument of music; as, to play on a flute.
  • (n.) To act; to behave; to practice deception.
  • (n.) To move in any manner; especially, to move regularly with alternate or reciprocating motion; to operate; to act; as, the fountain plays.
  • (n.) To move gayly; to wanton; to disport.
  • (n.) To act on the stage; to personate a character.
  • (v. t.) To put in action or motion; as, to play cannon upon a fortification; to play a trump.
  • (v. t.) To perform music upon; as, to play the flute or the organ.
  • (v. t.) To perform, as a piece of music, on an instrument; as, to play a waltz on the violin.
  • (v. t.) To bring into sportive or wanton action; to exhibit in action; to execute; as, to play tricks.
  • (v. t.) To act or perform (a play); to represent in music action; as, to play a comedy; also, to act in the character of; to represent by acting; to simulate; to behave like; as, to play King Lear; to play the woman.
  • (v. t.) To engage in, or go together with, as a contest for amusement or for a wager or prize; as, to play a game at baseball.
  • (v. t.) To keep in play, as a hooked fish, in order to land it.
  • (n.) Amusement; sport; frolic; gambols.
  • (n.) Any exercise, or series of actions, intended for amusement or diversion; a game.
  • (n.) The act or practice of contending for victory, amusement, or a prize, as at dice, cards, or billiards; gaming; as, to lose a fortune in play.
  • (n.) Action; use; employment; exercise; practice; as, fair play; sword play; a play of wit.
  • (n.) A dramatic composition; a comedy or tragedy; a composition in which characters are represented by dialogue and action.
  • (n.) The representation or exhibition of a comedy or tragedy; as, he attends ever play.
  • (n.) Performance on an instrument of music.
  • (n.) Motion; movement, regular or irregular; as, the play of a wheel or piston; hence, also, room for motion; free and easy action.
  • (n.) Hence, liberty of acting; room for enlargement or display; scope; as, to give full play to mirth.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) However, medicines have an important part to play, and it is now generally agreed that for the very poor populations medicines should be restricted to those on an 'essential drugs list' and should be made available as cheaply as possible.
  • (2) The data indicate that ebselen is likely to be useful in the therapy of inflammatory conditions in which reactive oxygen species, such as peroxides, play an aetiological role.
  • (3) It involves creativity, understanding of art form and the ability to improvise in the highly complex environment of a care setting.” David Cameron has boosted dementia awareness but more needs to be done Read more She warns: “To effect a cultural change in dementia care requires a change of thinking … this approach is complex and intricate, and can change cultural attitudes by regarding the arts as central to everyday life of the care home.” Another participant, Mary*, a former teacher who had been bedridden for a year, read plays with the reminiscence arts practitioner.
  • (4) Despite of the increasing diagnostic importance of the direct determination of the parathormone which is at first available only in special institutions in these cases methodical problems play a less important part than the still not infrequent appearing misunderstanding of the adequate basic disease.
  • (5) Mike Ashley told Lee Charnley that maybe he could talk with me last week but I said: ‘Listen, we cannot say too much so I think it’s better if we wait.’ The message Mike Ashley is sending is quite positive, but it was better to talk after we play Tottenham.” Benítez will ask Ashley for written assurances over his transfer budget, control of transfers and other spheres of club autonomy, but can also reassure the owner that the prospect of managing in the second tier holds few fears for him.
  • (6) Because many wnt genes are also expressed in the lung, we have examined whether the wnt family member wnt-2 (irp) plays a role in lung development.
  • (7) As prolongation of the action potential by TEA facilitates preferentially the hormone release evoked by low (ineffective) frequencies, it is suggested that a frequency-dependent broadening of action potentials which reportedly occurs on neurosecretory neurones may play an important role in the frequency-dependent facilitation of hormone release from the rat neurohypophysis.
  • (8) Michael Caine was his understudy for the 1959 play The Long and the Short and the Tall at the Royal Court Theatre.
  • (9) The presently available data allow us to draw the following conclusions: 1) G proteins play a mediatory role in the transmission of the signal(s) generated upon receptor occupancy that leads to the observed cytoskeletal changes.
  • (10) In concert with TF expressed by monocytes and macrophages this endothelial cell procoagulant activity may play a role in the pathogenesis of thrombotic disease.
  • (11) To determine whether or not the glycan moieties in hTPO play a role in the disease-associated epitopes in Hashimoto's thyroiditis, radiolabeled recombinant hTPO was immunoprecipitated after digestion with N-glycanase.
  • (12) Immunohistochemical observation of myoepithelial cells with monoclonal antibody from human mammalian cancer suggested that these cells play an important role in the process of glandular ducts formation.
  • (13) Anti-human factor V IgG decreased this enhanced thrombin formation in the presence of platelets, indicating that factor V from platelets was playing an important role in thrombin formation.
  • (14) The macrophage-derived product, interleukin 1 (IL 1) is thought to play an important regulatory role in the proliferation of T lymphocytes; however, its mechanism of action is unknown.
  • (15) The playing fields on which all those players began their journeys have been underfunded for years and are now facing a renewed crisis because of cuts to local authority budgets.
  • (16) The behaviour of DAO suggests that the enzyme plays an important role in the control of intracellular diamine concentration.
  • (17) It was with unanimous consent.” He denied that Trump’s tweets had played a part, saying: “No, no, no.
  • (18) When you have been out for a month you need to prepare properly before you come back.” Pellegrini will make his own assessment of Kompany’s fitness before deciding whether to play him in the Bournemouth game, which he is careful to stress may not be the foregone conclusion the league table might suggest.
  • (19) Photograph: Guardian The research also compiled data covered by a wider definition of tax haven, including onshore jurisdictions such as the US state of Delaware – accused by the Cayman islands of playing "faster and looser" even than offshore jurisdictions – and the Republic of Ireland, which has come under sustained pressure from other EU states to reform its own low-tax, light-tough, regulatory environment.
  • (20) Therefore, the measurement of the alpha-antitrypsin content plays the crucial part in differential diagnosis of primary (hereditary determined) and secondary (obstructive) emphysema.

Pretend


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To lay a claim to; to allege a title to; to claim.
  • (v. t.) To hold before, or put forward, as a cloak or disguise for something else; to exhibit as a veil for something hidden.
  • (v. t.) To hold out, or represent, falsely; to put forward, or offer, as true or real (something untrue or unreal); to show hypocritically, or for the purpose of deceiving; to simulate; to feign; as, to pretend friendship.
  • (v. t.) To intend; to design; to plot; to attempt.
  • (v. t.) To hold before one; to extend.
  • (v. i.) To put in, or make, a claim, truly or falsely; to allege a title; to lay claim to, or strive after, something; -- usually with to.
  • (v. i.) To hold out the appearance of being, possessing, or performing; to profess; to make believe; to feign; to sham; as, to pretend to be asleep.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) His anti-politics act may just be a shtick – pretending he's still on Have I Got News for You, satirising politics even though he's right at the centre of it – but it liberates him from the usual constraints.
  • (2) "Obviously [writers in translation] have a disadvantage and there's no sense pretending they don't, of being read in translation," said Gekoski.
  • (3) Tony Abbott pretended to support the renewable energy industry before the election but is now “launching a full-frontal attack” according to Labor’s environment spokesman Mark Butler.
  • (4) The Telegraph's secret taping of Cable and fellow Liberal Democrat ministers while pretending to be concerned constituents has raised eyebrows in some media quarters, but the newspaper has claimed a "clear public interest" defence for its actions.
  • (5) It is hard to tell who has really suffered, and who is only pretending.
  • (6) Respecting the frequency of invalidity this cancer pretends the second place among these diseases.
  • (7) When this parliament votes for another referendum as it inevitably will, thanks to the perpetual crutch that the Greens provide, let’s not pretend it reflects the will of the Scottish people, because it doesn’t.
  • (8) Non-doms could no longer pretend to live in Monaco while living in the UK for four working days a week.
  • (9) But equally, you’re ignoring how these people feel if you try and pretend they don’t feel their area is changing.
  • (10) Additionally, the Schmidt-Furlow investigators looked at instances where female interrogators had fondled prisoners, or pretended to splash menstrual blood upon them.
  • (11) Stewart Lee with a mask made of meat, pretending to be Canadian?
  • (12) Yes, there are other reasons why a boy might take a clock out of its casing & pretend he’d made it.
  • (13) It would be idle to pretend that Cameron doesn't have talents as a leader.
  • (14) Their leaders are charging round the country pretending they are going to get an overall majority, but in their heart of hearts they know it is not true, you can see it in their eyes.” The deputy prime minister, whose party has been in coalition with the Conservatives since 2010, said the next question for the public was “that since neither David Cameron or Ed Miliband are going to walk into Downing Street on their own, who is it the voters want at their side”.
  • (15) By pretending to ignore the scientific evidence, AquaBounty is doing readers a disservice.
  • (16) Pro-Europeans don't do themselves any favours by trying to pretend that it didn't happen.
  • (17) Indeed watching the prime minister singling out unemployed youngsters for uniquely punitive measures while pretending it is for their own good, cheered on by a gang of braying chums, it looks less like the behaviour of a national statesman and more like the petty vindictiveness of a schoolyard bully.
  • (18) And he must not pretend to be ignorant of the consequences of continuing to burn coal or take refuge in a "carbon cap" or some "target" for future emission reductions.
  • (19) During the collection of a one-hour spontaneous language sample from each child the experimenter pretended 20 times not to understand and asked, "What?"
  • (20) He would go around the communities and pretend to have a conversation with people but really his eyes were on the children playing," she says.