unplay

English[edit]

unplay (third-person singular simple present unplays, present participle unplaying, simple past and past participle unplayed)

(transitive) Hypothetically, to undo the playing of.
- 2003, Mary Sheppard, The Winds of Change, page 82:
  I feel like a traitor, but what's done is done. I can't unplay that note, even if it was a sour one.
(transitive, intransitive) To interact with something in a way that subverts the conventions of playing.
- 2020, Noah Wardrip-Fruin, How Pac-Man Eats, page 101:
  Flanagan outlines three kinds of critical play enacted by Victorian girls with dolls: In doll play, unplaying manifests in children abusing their dolls, "killing" them, or some other revision of the "care giving" framework […]
- 2022, Eldritch Priest, Earworm and Event:
  How they might go about unplaying a work would be awkward, but it might involve asking performers to commit to their idiosyncrasies and play away from what's given.