played (upon)

verb

past tense of play (upon)
as in exploited
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 played (upon)
  1. exploited
  2. manipulated
Verb
  • Three more defendants have been sentenced to a total of 155 months in prison for their role in the Feeding Our Future Fraud scheme–the $250 MILLION scheme that exploited a program intended to feed thousands of children in Minnesota.
    — Kaelan Deese, The Washington Examiner, 28 Aug. 2026
  • Early on July 11, agent 38148c found and exploited a zero-day in the Hugging Face handling of HDF5 files.
    — Dan Goodin, ArsTechnica, 27 Aug. 2026
Definition of exploited
Verb
  • The association said the money was lost after criminals impersonated its leadership and manipulated financial transactions.
    — George Nelson, ARTnews.com, 24 Aug. 2026
  • Our politics, cultures, and wars manipulated by America to varying extents.
    — Literary Hub, Literary Hub, 21 Aug. 2026
Definition of manipulated
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Browse Nearby Words

played up
played (upon)
played (with)
See all Nearby Words

Cite this Entry

“Played (upon).” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/played%20%28upon%29. Accessed 1 Sep. 2026.

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