plaything
(ˈpleɪθɪŋ)
[f. play n. + thing.]
A thing to play with, a toy.
| 1675 Traherne Chr. Ethics 450 Say he delighteth in armies and victories, and triumphs, and coronations: these are great in respect of playthings; but all these are feeble and pusillanimous to a great soul. 1690 Locke Hum. Und. i. iii. (1695) 14 A Child knows his Nurse and his Cradle, and by degrees the Play-things of a little more advanced Age. 1738 Swift Pol. Conversat. 29 A Child would have cry'd half an Hour before it would have found out such a pretty Plaything. 1856 Kane Arct. Expl. II. xxi. 207 Strange that these famine-pinched wanderers of the ice should rejoice in sports and play-things like the children of our own smiling sky. |
b. fig. A man, animal, or thing, treated as a thing to be played with.
| 1680 Otway Caius Marius i. i, Sylla too, a Boy, a Woman's Play-thing. 1779–81 Johnson L.P., Akenside Wks. IV. 289 A physician in a great city seems to be the mere play⁓thing of Fortune. 1868 Freeman Norm. Conq. II. vii. 75 The Empire..had now become the plaything of a worthless woman. |
c. attrib. (Chiefly appositive.)
| 1781 Cowper Hope 543 Yet charge not heavenly skill with having planned A play-thing world, unworthy of his hand. 1811 W. R. Spencer Poems Ded., Fancy bestow'd a plaything-lyre. 1851 H. D. Wolff Pict. Span. Life 186 His plaything sword is quivering in the bully's heart. |