power play
"power-play" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“power play” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 10
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Tactics used to magnify power or influence.
Corpus desk
Index EN-power-play · power play · English
power play · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 10 letters
- VOW-4 4 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "P" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | power play |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 10 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “power play” in English
Rare enough to double-check
power play is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 5 senses are on record.
power play doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, a sign its spelling follows regular English conventions. We don't track a confusable pairing for this entry, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
No documented word history exists for this headword, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct English form is power play, spelled P-O-W-E-R- -P-L-A-Y.
Definition
- 1Tactics used to magnify power or influence.
- 2A strategy or maneuver with a similar intention.
- 3A situation where a team has a numerical advantage on the ice due to one or more penalties given to the opposing team.
- 4A similar situation in other ball games, such as lacrosse, indoor soccer, rugby, and cricket.
- 5A play used to move the stones to the side of the sheet.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how power play appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
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. The current power play consists of an extraordinary range of countries simultaneously sitting down to negotiate big free trade and investment agreements.
This has become a power-play between England, Fifa and the Qatari leadership. England’s players have been very good on these issues.
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.