noun
Meaning 1
A final game in a series needed to break a tie.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
Standard Lemma guide
playoff
Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.
Sound
Pronunciation
Each Play button uses your device's default local English voice, or a natural local fallback. The selected voice name appears after playback. This is synthesized speech, not a source recording.
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General-American: Recorded audio is listed in the source snapshot.
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CMU ARPABET: P L EY1 AO2 F Digits mark lexical stress: 1 primary, 2 secondary, 0 unstressed.
noun
Meaning 2
A short series of games to select a league champion.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: Canada, US
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
noun
Meaning 3
A short series of games to select the last team to be promoted (to elevate to a higher league).
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
Usage: UK
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
noun
Meaning 4
A short piece of underscore played during a scene transition in a stage musical, usually reprising a song from the preceding scene.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
noun
Meaning 5
any final competition to determine a championship
Definition source: Princeton WordNet 3.0
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
Broader terms: contest, competition
Narrower terms: World Series
History
Etymology
Deverbal from play off; by surface analysis, play + -off.
Across languages
Translations
22 source translations are retained for this English entry.
- Bulgarian: плейоф (plejof) — series game
- Bulgarian: мач на елиминация (mač na eliminacija) — series game
- Chinese Mandarin: 季後賽 /季后赛 (jìhòusài) — series game
- Chinese Mandarin: 附加賽 /附加赛 (fùjiāsài) — series game
- Czech: baráž — series game
- Finnish: pudotuspelit — series game
- Finnish: pudotuspeli — series game
- Japanese: プレーオフ (purēofu) — series game
- Kazakh: плей-офф (plei-off) — series game
- Korean: 플레이오프 (peulleiopeu) — series game
- Macedonian: плејоф (plejof) — series game
- Polish: baraż — series game
- Polish: repasaż — series game
- Polish: repesaż — series game
- Portuguese: play-off — series game
- Portuguese: playoff — series game
- Russian: плей-офф (plej-off) — series game
- Slovak: baráž — series game
- Spanish: playoff — series game
- Spanish: eliminatoria — series game
- Swedish: utslagsmatch — series game
- Swedish: playoff-match — series game
Real reading context