game
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: enpr: gām
ipa: /ɡeɪm/
rhymes: -eɪm
Forms: form: games
form: gaming
form: gamed
form: gamed
Etymology: 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 Yola gaame, gaaume, gaume (“game”), Old Frisian game, gome (“joy, amusement, entertainment”), Dutch gemelijk (“cantankerous, crabbed”), Middle High German gamen (“joy, amusement, fun, pleasure”), Danish gammen (“merriment”), Icelandic, Norwegian Nynorsk gaman (“joy, fun”), Swedish gamman (“mirth, rejoicing, merriment”). Related to gammon, gamble.
Senses: examples: text: an impressive protest against gaming, swearing, and all immoral practices which might forfeit divine aid in the great struggle for National Independence
ref: 1898, “George Washington: Statesman, Christian Gentleman”, in Suggestive programs for special day exercises:
glosses: To gamble.
examples: text: “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. […]”
ref: 2017 June 16, Joanna Walters, “Inside the rehab saving young men from their internet addiction”, in The Guardian:
glosses: To play card games, board games, or video games.
examples: text: We'll bury them in paperwork, and game the system.
text: 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.
ref: 2012 August 31, Amanda Holpuch, “Trolls game Taylor Swift competition in favor of school for the hearing impaired”, in The Guardian:
text: “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.
ref: 2020 February 6, Alex Hern, quoting Natalie Hitchins, “Amazon Choice label is being 'gamed to promote poor products'”, in The Guardian:
text: 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.
ref: 2023 January 25, Christian Wolmar, “An informative cab ride on the state of the railway”, in RAIL, number 975, page 34:
glosses: 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.
examples: text: Returning briefly to his journalistic persona to interview Britney Spears, he finds himself gaming her, and she gives him her phone number.
ref: 2005 October 6, “Picking up the pieces”, in The Economist:
text: A business associate of mine at the time, George Wu, sat across the way, gaming a stripper the way I taught him.
ref: 2010, Mystery, The Pickup Artist: The New and Improved Art of Seduction, Villard Books, →ISBN, page 100:
text: 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.”
ref: 2010 July 9, Sheila McClear, “Would you date a pickup artist?”, in New York Post:
topics: lifestyle
seduction-community
sexuality
glosses: To perform premeditated seduction strategy.
raw_tags: of males
Derived terms: game the system
gamer