game

Etymology 1

From Middle English game, gamen, gammen, from Old English gamen (“sport, joy, mirth, pastime, game, amusement, pleasure”), from Proto-West Germanic *gaman, from Proto-Germanic *gamaną (“amusement, pleasure, game", literally "participation, communion, people together”), from *ga- (collective prefix) + *mann- (“man”); or alternatively from *ga- + a root from Proto-Indo-European *men- (“to think, have in mind”). Cognate with Old Frisian game, gome (“joy, amusement, entertainment”), Middle High German gamen (“joy, amusement, fun, pleasure”), Swedish gamman (“mirth, rejoicing, merriment”), Icelandic gaman (“fun”). Related to gammon, gamble.

noun

1. A playful or competitive activity.
   1. A playful activity that may be unstructured; an amusement or pastime.
      Being a child is all fun and games.
   2. (countable) An activity described by a set of rules, especially for the purpose of entertainment, often competitive or having an explicit goal.
      Joshua: Shall we play a game? David: ... Love to. How about Global Thermonuclear War? Joshua: Wouldn't you prefer a good game of chess? David: Later. Let's play Global Thermonuclear War. Joshua: Fine. 1983, Lawrence Lasker et al., WarGames
      Games in the classroom can make learning fun.
   3. (UK, in the plural) A school subject during which sports are practised.
   4. (countable) A particular instance of playing a game.
      Sally won the game.
      They can turn the game around in the second half.
   5. That which is gained, such as the stake in a game.
   6. The number of points necessary to win a game.
      In short whist, five points are game.
      See also: for the win
   7. (card games) In some games, a point awarded to the player whose cards add up to the largest sum.
   8. (countable) The equipment that enables such activity, particularly as packaged under a title.
      Some of the games in the closet we have on the computer as well.
   9. One's manner, style, or performance in playing a game.
      Study can help your game of chess.
      Hit the gym if you want to toughen up your game.
   10. (countable) Ellipsis of video game.
       There’s a sense here, as well as in games such as Limbo, that we’re making ourselves experience our children’s reality, trapped in the chaos that the adults have created. May 8 2019, Jon Bailes, “Save yourself! The video games casting us as helpless children”, in The Guardian
2. (now rare) Lovemaking, flirtation.
3. (slang) Prostitution. (Now chiefly in on the game.)
   [H]e put spurs to his horse, and just in the twilight reached the gate, where, at that time, there happened to be two ladies of the game [translating mugeres moças], who being on their journey to Seville, with the carriers, had chanced to take up their night's lodging in this place. 1755, Miguel de Cervantes, translated by Tobias Smollett, Don Quixote, Volume 1, I.2
4. (countable, informal, nearly always singular) A field of gainful activity, as an industry or profession.
   When it comes to making sales, John is the best in the game.
   He's in the securities game somehow.
5. (countable, figurative) Something that resembles a game with rules, despite not being designed.
   In the game of life, you may find yourself playing the waiting game far too often.
   Hidden behind thickets of acronyms and gorse bushes of detail, a new great game is under way across the globe. Some call it geoeconomics, but it's geopolitics too. 2013-07-19, Timothy Garton Ash, “Where Dr Pangloss meets Machiavelli”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 6, page 18
6. (countable, military) An exercise simulating warfare, whether computerized or involving human participants.
7. (uncountable) Wild animals hunted for food.
   The forest has plenty of game.
   I had known the President several years before he became famous, and we had had some correspondence on subjects of natural history. His interest in such themes is always very fresh and keen, and the main motive of his visit to the Park at this time was to see and study in its semi-domesticated condition the great game which he had so often hunted during his ranch days; and he was kind enough to think it would be an additional pleasure to see it with a nature-lover like myself. 1907, John Burroughs, Camping & Tramping with Roosevelt, Houghton Mifflin Company, →OCLC, pages 5–6
8. (uncountable, informal, used mostly for men) The ability to seduce someone, usually by strategy.
   He didn't get anywhere with her because he had no game.
   She's strange, so strange, but I didn't complain / She said yes to me when I ran my game 1998, “She's Strange”, performed by Nate Dogg
9. (uncountable, slang) Mastery; the ability to excel at something.
   What is game? Who got game? / Where's the game in life, behind the game behind the game / I got game, she's got game / We got game, they got game, he got game 1998, “He Got Game”, performed by Public Enemy
   In the contemporary arts of the academic contact zone, I say African American students got game! 2005, Kermit Ernest Campbell, Gettin' Our Groove on: Rhetoric, Language, and Literacy for the Hip Hop Generation, page 123
   My dad had game at that kind of thing, and I spent long periods as a child watching him. 2009, Michael Marshall, Bad Things, page 24
10. (countable) A questionable or unethical practice in pursuit of a goal.
    You want to borrow my credit card for a week? What's your game?
    Your murderous game is nearly up. 1845, Blackwood Magazine
    It was obviously Lord Macaulay's game to blacken the greatest literary champion of the cause he had set himself to attack. 1902, George Saintsbury, Dryden, page 182

adj

1. (colloquial) Willing and able to participate.
   Some of Grimsby’s other (extraordinarily up-to-date) targets include Donald Trump and Daniel Radcliffe, whose fates here are too breath-catchingly cruel to spoil, and also the admirably game Strong, whose character is beset by a constant stream of humiliations that hit with the force of a jet of…well, you’ll see. 23 February 2016, Robbie Collin, “Grimsby review: ' Sacha Baron Cohen's vital, venomous action movie'”, in The Daily Telegraph (London)
2. (of an animal) That shows a tendency to continue to fight against another animal, despite being wounded, often severely.
3. Persistent, especially in senses similar to the above.

verb

1. (intransitive) To gamble.
   an impressive protest against gaming, swearing, and all immoral practices which might forfeit divine aid in the great struggle for National Independence 1898, “George Washington: Statesman, Christian Gentleman”, in Suggestive programs for special day exercises
2. (intransitive) To play card games, board games, or video games.
   The first few days after getting here are weird. It’s a version of cold turkey because you’ve been gaming around the clock and suddenly, nothing. […] 2017-06-16, Joanna Walters, “Inside the rehab saving young men from their internet addiction”, in The Guardian
3. (transitive) To exploit loopholes in a system or bureaucracy in a way which defeats or nullifies the spirit of the rules in effect, usually to obtain a result which otherwise would be unobtainable.
   We'll bury them in paperwork, and game the system.
   A large batch of online trolls have gamed a web contest that promises a Taylor Swift performance at any school in the US. The target? Horace Mann School for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing. 2012-08-31, Amanda Holpuch, “Trolls game Taylor Swift competition in favor of school for the hearing impaired”, in The Guardian
   “Amazon risks betraying the trust millions of customers place in the Amazon’s Choice badge by allowing its endorsement to be all too easily gamed,” said Which?’s Natalie Hitchins. 2020-02-06, Alex Hern, quoting Natalie Hitchins, “Amazon Choice label is being 'gamed to promote poor products'”, in The Guardian
   It is an example of what real entrepreneurship can do on the railway, but sadly there are not many other examples. Most of the private sector businesses in rail are simply 'gaming' the system, trying to outdo or outthink the regulator and the Government in order to generate profit. January 25 2023, Christian Wolmar, “An informative cab ride on the state of the railway”, in RAIL, number 975, page 34
4. (transitive, seduction community, slang, of males) To perform premeditated seduction strategy.
   Returning briefly to his journalistic persona to interview Britney Spears, he finds himself gaming her, and she gives him her phone number. October 6, 2005, “Picking up the pieces”, in The Economist
   A business associate of mine at the time, George Wu, sat across the way, gaming a stripper the way I taught him. 2010, Mystery, The Pickup Artist: The New and Improved Art of Seduction, Villard Books, page 100
   How did Amanda know she wasn’t getting gamed? Well, she didn’t. “I would wonder, ‘Is he saying stuff to other girls that he says to me?’ We did everything we could to cut it off […] yet we somehow couldn’t.” July 9, 2010, Sheila McClear, “Would you date a pickup artist?”, in New York Post

Etymology 2

adj

1. Injured, lame (of a limb).
   around 1900, O. Henry, Lost on Dress Parade You come with me and we'll have a cozy dinner and a pleasant talk together, and by that time your game ankle will carry you home very nicely, I am sure."