play ball
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
cooperate or collaborate willingly
Literally: play a ball game
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
Because they can be seen to be playing ball and yet benefit.
The editor would have doubled it, if you'd played ball with me.
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “play ball” mean?
cooperate or collaborate willingly Literally: play a ball game
Is “play ball” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.