Role play or roleplay?
role play is a verb meaning “Alternative form of roleplay”; roleplay is a verb meaning “To act out a scenario or fantasy with another person or other people”. role play is written as two words and roleplay as one word; they are used differently.
What is the difference between role play and roleplay?
| role play | roleplay | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | verb, noun | verb, noun |
| Meaning | Alternative form of roleplay | To act out a scenario or fantasy with another person or other people To act as a character as part of a fantasy, especially with a group The act or practice of roleplaying; an instance of roleplaying |
| Example | none recorded | To spice up their sex life, they like to roleplay |
| Forms | role-plays, role-playing, role-played rôle-plays, rôle-playing, rôle-played | roleplays, roleplaying, roleplayed rôleplays, rôleplaying, rôleplayed |
| Pronunciation | not recorded | /ˈrəʊl.pleɪ/ /ˈroʊl.pleɪ/ |
| In writing | not counted (the list counts single words) | about once in every 2 million words |
Sources: role play and roleplay in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of role play and roleplay
role play
- 1
Alternative form of roleplay
- 2
Alternative form of roleplay
- 3
Alternative form of roleplay
- 4
Alternative form of roleplay
- 5
datedDated form of roleplay
- 6
datedDated form of roleplay
- 7
datedDated form of roleplay
- 8
datedDated form of roleplay
roleplay
- 1
To act out a scenario or fantasy with another person or other people
To spice up their sex life, they like to roleplay
- 2
The act or practice of roleplaying; an instance of roleplaying
Roy: Let's do some roleplay, OK? Do you think that would be a good idea? Moss: It helped me learn how to buy sandwiches
- 3
Dated spelling of roleplay
- 4
Dated spelling of roleplay
- 5
To act as a character as part of a fantasy, especially with a group
He likes to roleplay a vampire
- 6
The practice of roleplaying
- 7
To act out a social role, especially one that one does not truly belong to
He talks like he's some scrappy bootstrap entrepreneur but he's just some old money rich kid roleplaying
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, role play or roleplay?
role play is a phrase, which the list of single words does not count; roleplay about once in every 2 million words.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search role play vs roleplay?
“role play vs roleplay” is searched about 10 times a month on Google and 10 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“roleplay vs role play”, “role play or roleplay”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.