role player
- noun
- /roʊl ˈpleɪər/
- Jargon
- At the gaming convention, each role player brought their own unique character to the storytelling session.
- solid role players
- a lot of role players
- two role players
Examples
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Why don't they just sign Phil Jackson, who doesn't need a bunch of dramatic superstars to win a championship but will rely on role players who are willing to do their job?
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Kobe asked for just one thing, role players, and when he got Pau (All-Star Pau), he immediately went to the finals for 3 straight years.
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Because of this, role players become more important than ever.
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Mind you, before we could get to voting, it was important that we decide early on what we meant by role player.
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Having specialists as role players can lead to success, but only if a team's best players are versatile.
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But if they are willing to give away Bosh and some role players, anything is possible.
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You had the superstar, maybe another star, and the rest of the guys were role players.
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Aaron: I think a role player's role is also about what kind of impact he had on the Lakers' success.
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Most championships were the result of one of two role players stepping up big and shifting the balance of power in the Finals.
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Like with every other move they've made this off-season, Millwood's a nice role player at a good price.
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Synonyms
A person who is important and active in a particular area
A person who regularly plays board or card games
Antonyms
How Committed
Surface Forms
Morphology
The sense 'a person who plays a role' is directly and compositionally derived from 'role' (the part an actor plays) + 'player' (a performer). This straightforward noun+noun compound follows common English word-formation patterns and remains predictable even when applied to gaming contexts, so a B1 learner who knows both constituents will understand it.
Etymology
The noun role player comes from people who 'play' a role in a game or story; the player pretends to be a character and acts or speaks as that person. So a role player today means 'someone who plays a pretend character' in tabletop or online games.