play-actingnoun [ U ]
uk/ˈpleɪ.æk.tɪŋ/us/ˈpleɪ.æk.t̬ɪŋ/an attempt to hide your feelings from other people, or to entertain them, by deliberately behaving in a way that does not represent your true feelings:
Don't take any notice of him - it's just play-acting.
Thesaurus: synonyms and related words
Faking & pretending
- a wolf in sheep's clothing idiom
- affect
- assume
- believe
- bluff
- changeling
- charlatan
- falsify
- feign
- fraud
- go through the motions idiom
- guise
- phoney
- play at sth
- play possum idiom
- play sth out
- pose as sb
- professed
- purport
- quack
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play-act
verb [ I ] uk/ˈpleɪ.ækt/us/ˈpleɪ.ækt/