Dictionary

playtoy en · NOUN

Etymology

From play + toy.

Meanings

1. A plaything.
   • To blacks, adds Editor-Publisher Ida Lewis, Women’s Lib is merely “a playtoy for middle-class white women.” 1973 March 26, “Blacks v. Feminists”, in Time:
   • 1724, William Burkitt, Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament, London, 1739, "Hebrews" Chapter 11, p. 742, [Moses] did not only […] at three Years old cast a Crown, [given] him for a Play-toy, to the Ground, and trample it under his Feet; but as the Apostle says here, when he came to be a Man, he treated it with no more Respect, but refused to be called the Son of Pharaoh’s Daughter.
   • It took some time for the singers to come off their level of exaltation, but the minister stood resolute until the song unwound like a child’s playtoy and lay quieted in the aisles. 1969, Maya Angelou, chapter 18, in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, New York: Bantam, published 1971, page 104:
   • 'A nice play-toy that for a respectable girl' said the shocked parson, his lean fingers indicating the naked, maimed doll and its unabashed mother. 1907, Barbara Baynton, edited by Sally Krimmer and Alan Lawson, Human Toll (Portable Australian Authors: Barbara Baynton), St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, published 1980, page 167:

Forms