Word Pronunciation & Dictionary

play old harry

Word Rarity Uncommon

Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.63 in modern English

Syllables: play old har-ry
IPA

24

Scrabble Score

12

Letters

2

Syllables

8

Unique Chars

Meaning

verb

To play the devil; to make mischief.

Example Sentences

"By his accent and innocent style I detected he was not a colonial, so I got him to relate his history. He was an Englishman by birth, but had been to America, Spain, New Zealand, Tasmania, &c.; by his own make out had ever been a man of note, and had played Old Harry everywhere."
"Blenkiron and I have been moving in the best circles as skilled American engineers who are going to play Old Harry with the British on the Tigris."
"I distinguish five more general classes: but I am far from equally happy about all of them. They are, however, quite enough to play Old Harry with two fetishes which I admit to an inclination to play Old Harry with, viz. (1) the true/false fetish, (2) the value/fact fetish.'"

Inflected Forms

plays Old Harry (present, singular) playing Old Harry (participle, present) played Old Harry (participle, past) played Old Harry (past)

Questions

What does play old harry mean?: To play the devil; to make mischief.

How to pronounce play old harry

Open the pronunciation page — Open the Speakur entry for “play old harry”.
Read the phonetic spelling — Read the IPA spelling () so you know which sounds to aim for.
Play the audio — Click Play to hear reference audio for “play old harry”.
Repeat and practice — Say “play old harry” aloud, matching stress and vowels until it feels natural.