played (upon)

verb

past tense of play (upon)
as in exploited
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 played (upon)
  1. exploited
  2. manipulated
Verb
  • This notorious commercial entity, a precursor of the global corporations of today and big enough to command its own army, ruthlessly exploited foreign resources, human and material.
    — Rebecca Mead, New Yorker, 26 Oct. 2026
  • 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
Definition of exploited
Verb
  • Some were manipulated with simpler or non-AI tools, including Photoshop.
    — Cory Smith, Baltimore Sun, 30 Oct. 2026
  • In contrast, Karmy-Jones said Brand remembers very little of the women and manipulated his account after reading the prosecution’s case.
    — Jake Kanter, Deadline, 30 Oct. 2026
Definition of manipulated
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

played up
played (upon)
played (with)
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Cite this Entry

“Played (upon).” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/played%20%28upon%29. Accessed 1 Nov. 2026.

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