bit player
4
6.5
- noun
:
figurante
- He was just a bit player in the project, contributing a small amount of dialogue.
So a stranger or a bit player in your lives is relatively meaningless to a narcissist except as a source of supply.
- So a stranger or a bit player in your lives is relatively meaningless to a narcissist except as a source of supply.
- Now later on towards they're actually quite towards the end where Mythanet becomes bit player character.
- We're just sort of like bit players that don't even realize that they're, they're just, you know, stock footage or something like that, right?
Examples
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They're bit players.
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She feels "more and more a bit player in my own life" (58).
Academic text (2013) -
Just a bit player in the war.
Fiction book (1999) -
She was a bit player in a couple of my movies.
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I was an unimportant bit player in the drama of her life.
Fiction book (1993) -
The dying man was a bit player, necessary but obscured.
Fiction book (2000) -
Rush is king, and everyone on the left is a bit player. Gotcha.
Blog text (22) -
Mother's mental illness took center stage, rendering my father, my younger sister, and me bit players with no script to follow.
Fiction book (1998) -
Most prosecutors ignored crime victims until they were on the witness stand, treating them like bit players in the complex legal melodrama.
Fiction book (1995) -
He's been a starter in three games; he's been a bit player off the bench in three.
Blog text (25)
Synonyms
32
3.5
A background actor who appears without speaking
1
8.8
A person who has a very small part in a play or film, often with no lines
Antonyms
How Important
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'a person with a minor role' is directly derivable from combining 'bit' (a small amount/piece) with 'player' (a participant), yielding the compositional notion of a small or minor participant. This diminutive composition follows common English patterns and would be predictable to a B1 learner who knows both constituent words.
Etymology
Bit player comes from old stage and film work where a 'bit' meant a very small acting part and a player was an actor. So a bit player today means someone with a 'minor role' or little influence in a project.