playthingとは

意味・読み方・使い方

名詞

plaything (複数形 playthings)

1. A thing or person intended for playing with.
   • 1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), London: A[ndrew] Millar […], OCLC 928184292:

     [S]he hastily retired, taking with her her little girl, whose eyes were all over blubbered at the melancholy news she heard of Jones, who used to call her his little wife, and not only gave her many playthings, but spent whole hours in playing with her himself.

   • 1856: Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary, Part III Chapter XI, translated by Eleanor Marx-Aveling

     The next day Charles had the child brought back. She asked for her mamma. They told her she was away; that she would bring her back some playthings.

2. A person at the mercy of fate.
   • 1834, Letitia Elizabeth Landon, Francesca Carrara, volume 2, page 297:

     We talk of our energies and of our will—we are the mere playthings of subtle and malignant chances.

形容詞

plaything (not comparable)

1. Used for the purpose of play or amusement
   • 1831, Letitia Elizabeth Landon, Romance and Reality, volume 3, page 17:

     Like the cards which form a child's plaything palace, our pleasures are nicely balanced one upon the other.

同意語

• (a thing intended for playing with): toy