Thesaurus results for PLAY (UPON)

play (upon)

verb

Definition of play (upon)

as in to exploit

to control or take advantage of by artful, unfair, or insidious means played upon the customer's vanity to convince her to buy the expensive makeup kit

Synonyms & Similar Words

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Example Sentences

Recent Examples of Synonyms for play (upon)

Verb

That signal can be aggregated, correlated, and exploited by hostile foreign intelligence services to anticipate our movements, targets, and timing.

— Jon Brodkin, ArsTechnica, 23 Oct. 2026
The researchers did not observe every capability being actively exploited, so account compromise should not be assumed without evidence.

— Kurt Knutsson, FOXNews.com, 23 Oct. 2026

Definition of exploit

Verb

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Tuesday the Pentagon has not manipulated the service.

— Jennifer Jacobs, CBS News, 21 Oct. 2026
Without that provenance, the agent can’t reliably distinguish current operational truth from stale, incomplete or manipulated information.

— Shekhar Iyer, Forbes.com, 20 Oct. 2026

Definition of manipulate

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Browse Nearby Words

play up

play (upon)

playwear

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Style

“Play (upon).” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/play%20%28upon%29. Accessed 27 Oct. 2026.

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Synonyms of play (upon)

verb

Example Sentences

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