Etimology
From Middle English game, gamen, gammen, from Old English gamen (“sport, joy, mirth, pastime, game, amusement, pleasure”), from Proto-West Germanic *gaman, from Proto-Germanic *gamaną (“amusement, pleasure, game", literally "participation, communion, people together”), from *ga- (collective prefix) + *mann- (“man”); or alternatively from *ga- + a root from Proto-Indo-European *men- (“to think, have in mind”). Cognate with Old Frisian game, gome (“joy, amusement, entertainment”), Middle High German gamen (“joy, amusement, fun, pleasure”), Swedish gamman (“mirth, rejoicing, merriment”), Icelandic gaman (“fun”). Related to gammon, gamble.
noun
game (countable and uncountable, plural games)
A playful or competitive activity.
(now rare) Lovemaking, flirtation.
(slang) Prostitution. (Now chiefly in on the game.)
(countable, informal, nearly always singular) A field of gainful activity, as an industry or profession.
(countable, figuratively) Something that resembles a game with rules, despite not being designed.
(countable, military) An exercise simulating warfare, whether computerized or involving human participants.
(countable) A questionable or unethical practice in pursuit of a goal.
(uncountable) Wild animals hunted for food.
(uncountable, informal, used mostly for men) The ability to seduce someone, usually by strategy.
(uncountable, slang) Mastery; the ability to excel at something.
(uncountable, archaic) Diversion, entertainment.
Examples
Synonyms: amusement, diversion, entertainment, festivity, frolic, fun, gaiety, gambol, lark, merriment, merrymaking, pastime, play, prank, recreation, sport, spree
Antonyms: drudgery, work, toil
Being a child is all fun and games.
Synonyms: see Thesaurus:game
Joshua: Shall we play a game?David: ... Love to. How about Global Thermonuclear War?Joshua: Wouldn't you prefer a good game of chess?David: Later. Let's play Global Thermonuclear War.Joshua: Fine.
Games in the classroom can make learning fun.
From time to time, track-suited boys ran past them, with all the deadly purpose and humourless concentration of those who enjoyed Games.
Synonym: match
Sally won the game.
They can turn the game around in the second half.
“I'm through with all pawn-games,” I laughed. “Come, let us have a game of lansquenet. Either I will take a farewell fall out of you or you will have your sevenfold revenge”.
In short whist, five points are game.
See also: for the win
Some of the games in the closet we have on the computer as well.
Study can help your game of chess.
Hit the gym if you want to toughen up your game.
I played golf with her that same afternoon. She lost eight balls, I remember. Eight. I had a terrible time getting her to at least open her eyes when she took a swing at the ball. I improved her game immensely, though.
There’s a sense here, as well as in games such as Limbo, that we’re making ourselves experience our children’s reality, trapped in the chaos that the adults have created.
ſet them downe, / For ſlottiſh ſpoyles of opportunitie; / And daughters of the game.
[H]e put spurs to his horse, and just in the twilight reached the gate, where, at that time, there happened to be two ladies of the game [translating mugeres moças], who being on their journey to Seville, with the carriers, had chanced to take up their night's lodging in this place.
Synonym: line
When it comes to making sales, John is the best in the game.
He's in the securities game somehow.
In the game of life, you may find yourself playing the waiting game far too often.
I ſee you ſtand like Grey-hounds in the ſlips, / Straying vpon the Start. The Game’s afoot:
“I'm through with all pawn-games,” I laughed. “Come, let us have a game of lansquenet. Either I will take a farewell fall out of you or you will have your sevenfold revenge”.
Hidden behind thickets of acronyms and gorse bushes of detail, a new great game is under way across the globe. Some call it geoeconomics, but it's geopolitics too.
Synonym: wargame
Synonyms: scheme, racket
You want to borrow my credit card for a week? What's your game?
Your murderous game is nearly up.
It was obviously Lord Macaulay's game to blacken the greatest literary champion of the cause he had set himself to attack.
The forest has plenty of game.
I had known the President several years before he became famous, and we had had some correspondence on subjects of natural history. His interest in such themes is always very fresh and keen, and the main motive of his visit to the Park at this time was to see and study in its semi-domesticated condition the great game which he had so often hunted during his ranch days; and he was kind enough to think it would be an additional pleasure to see it with a nature-lover like myself.
He didn't get anywhere with her because he had no game.
She's strange, so strange, but I didn't complain / She said yes to me when I ran my game
What is game? Who got game? / Where's the game in life, behind the game behind the game / I got game, she's got game / We got game, they got game, he got game
In the contemporary arts of the academic contact zone, I say African American students got game!
My dad had game at that kind of thing, and I spent long periods as a child watching him.
To ſet the minde on the racke of long meditation is a torment: to follow the ſwift foote of your hound alday long, hath no wearineſſe: what would you ſay of him that finds better game in his ſtudie, then you in the fielde, and would account your diſport his puniſhment? ſuch there are, though you doubt and wonder.
adjective
game (comparative gamer, superlative gamest)
(colloquial) Willing and able to participate.
(of an animal) That shows a tendency to continue to fight against another animal, despite being wounded, often severely.
Persistent, especially in senses similar to the above.
Examples
Synonyms: sporting, willing, daring, disposed, favorable, nervy, courageous, valiant
Antonyms: cautious, disinclined
" […] But what’s this long face about, Mr. Starbuck; wilt thou not chase the white whale? art not game for Moby Dick?”
Some of Grimsby’s other targets include Donald Trump and Daniel Radcliffe, whose fates here are too breath-catchingly cruel to spoil, and also the admirably game Strong, whose character is beset by a constant stream of humiliations that hit with the force of a jet of…well, you’ll see.
verb
game (third-person singular simple present games, present participle gaming, simple past and past participle gamed)
(intransitive) To gamble.
(intransitive) To play card games, board games, or video games.
(transitive) To exploit loopholes in a system or bureaucracy in a way which defeats or nullifies the spirit of the rules in effect, usually to obtain a result which otherwise would be unobtainable.
(transitive, seduction community, slang, of males) To perform premeditated seduction strategy.
Examples
an impressive protest against gaming, swearing, and all immoral practices which might forfeit divine aid in the great struggle for National Independence
“The first few days after getting here are weird. It’s a version of cold turkey because you’ve been gaming around the clock and suddenly, nothing. […] ”
We'll bury them in paperwork, and game the system.
A large batch of online trolls have gamed a web contest that promises a Taylor Swift performance at any school in the US. The target? Horace Mann School for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing.
“Amazon risks betraying the trust millions of customers place in the Amazon’s Choice badge by allowing its endorsement to be all too easily gamed,” said Which?’s Natalie Hitchins.
It is an example of what real entrepreneurship can do on the railway, but sadly there are not many other examples. Most of the private sector businesses in rail are simply 'gaming' the system, trying to outdo or outthink the regulator and the Government in order to generate profit.
Returning briefly to his journalistic persona to interview Britney Spears, he finds himself gaming her, and she gives him her phone number.
A business associate of mine at the time, George Wu, sat across the way, gaming a stripper the way I taught him.
How did Amanda know she wasn’t getting gamed? Well, she didn’t. “I would wonder, ‘Is he saying stuff to other girls that he says to me?’ We did everything we could to cut it off […] yet we somehow couldn’t.”
Etimology
(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)
adjective
game (comparative more game, superlative most game)
(of a limb) Injured, lame.
Examples
You come with me and we'll have a cozy dinner and a pleasant talk together, and by that time your game ankle will carry you home very nicely, I am sure."
He was done for, all right. I took out my six-shooter and aimed right between his eyes. He kicked once, sort of leaped—or tried to, and then lay still. I stood there a minute, to see if he had to have another. He was so game that, some way, I didn’t want to give him more than he needed.