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
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In many instances, the legitimate owner is unaware that their addresses are being exploited.—
Vincentas Grinius,
Forbes.com,
1 Aug. 2025 -
Microsoft said its analysis showed that Chinese hackers were exploiting SharePoint weaknesses as early as July 7.—
Renee Dudley,
ProPublica,
1 Aug. 2025
Verb
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Fast-forward to this month, when Paramount agreed to a $16 million settlement to move past Trump's claims that CBS's 60 Minutes deceptively manipulated a pre-election interview with Kamala Harris.—
Ashley Belanger,
ArsTechnica,
25 July 2025
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The Dershowitz theory does not compute because the government invariably manipulates projections about future harm for ulterior partisan or personal motives.—
Bruce Fein,
Baltimore Sun,
24 July 2025
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“Play (upon).” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/play%20%28upon%29. Accessed 6 Aug. 2025.
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