Definition of "player"

One that plays

1. One who plays any game or sport.  examples

2. (theater) An actor in a dramatic play.  quotations  examples

   Quotations

   • All the world's a ſtage, / And all the men and women, merely Players

     c. 1598–1600 (date written), William Shakespeare, “As You Like It”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act II, scene vii], page 194, column 1

3. (music) One who plays on a musical instrument.  examples

4. (gaming, video games) A gamer; a player of video games or similar.  quotations  examples

   Quotations

   • The player is free to create their own narrative within a much larger set of possible designed narrative options, or, given the geographic and dialogical openness of Morrowind, to refuse the creation of any narrative but their own and wander aimlessly through the game.

     2015, Angus Slater, “Prophecy, Pre-destination, and Free-form Gameplay: The Nerevarine Prophecy in Bethesda’s ‘Morrowind’”, in Online: Heidelberg Journal of Religions on the Internet‎, volume 7, page 175

5. (gambling) A gambler.  examples

6. (historical) A mechanism that actuates a player piano or other automatic musical instrument.  quotations

   Quotations

   • But up to this time the application of the player mechanism had been confined to reed instruments, the piano manufacturers having successfully resisted the introduction of the player mechanism into the piano; but, in the meantime, the manufacturers of players had grown strong and the manufacturers were beginning to properly interpret the handwriting on the wall

     1915, John McTammany, The Technical History of the Player

   • A Technical Treatise on Piano Player Mechanism" contains detailed description of the various types of interior and exterior players, embracing manual, pneumatic, automatic, mechanical and electric

     1909, William Braid White, Regulation and Repair of Piano and Player Mechanism, ...‎, page 179

   • Electric players used either a four-lobe rotary pump belt-driven by an electric motor or a self-contained electric motor and ...

     1970, Arthur W. J. G. Ord-Hume, Player piano: the history of the mechanical piano and how to repair it‎

7. (electronics) An electronic device that plays audio and/or video media.  examples

8. (computing) A software application that plays audio and/or video media, such as a media player.  examples

One who is playful; one without serious aims; an idler; a trifler.  examples

A participant; one involved in something.  quotations  examples

(informal) A person who plays the field rather than having a long-term sexual relationship.  quotations  examples