to play one's part
1
3.9
- phrasal verb
- And we're all just playing our part to support it.
Examples
-
But each and every one ofus played our part.
-
And we'll all play our part.
-
And, God love her, she played her part to a T.
-
You play your part well.
-
- Oh, I merely played my part.
-
Investors take their place and I'll play my part.
-
Well, I'll play my part.
-
I'm going to play my part myself.
-
Over the years I've played my part well.
-
In a successful team project, everyone must play their part to achieve the common goal.
Synonyms
819
2.5
To join in an activity with other people
278
2.5
To help decide what happens in a situation
201
1.4
To join in an activity with other people
62
2.5
To act in a show or help make something happen
56
3.3
Join others to give work, help, or money for a shared task
41
3.2
Give money or help together to reach a shared goal
26
4.3
To join an activity or event with other people
To do your fair share of work in a group
To do as much work as the others in a group
Antonyms
How Responsible
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase is directly compositional: 'play' in the sense 'perform' or 'take part', combined with the possessive 'one's' and 'part' meaning 'role' or 'contribution', yields 'perform one's role'. This construction is cross-linguistically common (e.g. 'hacer su parte', 'jouer son rôle') and follows a transparent theatrical/metaphorical pattern that a B1 learner who knows the constituent words will readily infer.
Etymology
Play one's part comes from the theatre, where each actor must play a specific part on stage. If everyone does their role, the show goes well, so the phrase means 'to do what you are responsible for'.