play up

1. 1.

   move into the foreground to make more visible or prominent

   “The introduction highlighted the speaker's distinguished career in linguistics”

   Synonymsforegroundhighlightspotlight

   Antonymsplay down

   Broaderbring out
2. 2.

   ingratiate oneself to; often with insincere behavior

   “She is playing up to the chairman”

   Synonymscozy upcotton upshine upsidle upsuck up

   Broaderingratiate

Questions about play up

What does play up mean?

play up means "move into the foreground to make more visible or prominent". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

What is another word for play up?

Close synonyms include foreground, highlight, spotlight, cozy up, cotton up. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

What is the opposite of play up?

The recorded antonyms are play down.

Is play up a common word?

play up is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.