PLAYFUL

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does playful mean? 

• PLAYFUL (adjective)
  The adjective PLAYFUL has 1 sense:

1. full of fun and high spirits

  Familiarity information: PLAYFUL used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• PLAYFUL (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Full of fun and high spirits

Context example:

playful children just let loose from school

Similar:

coltish; frolicky; frolicsome; rollicking; sportive (given to merry frolicking)

devilish; rascally; roguish (playful in an appealingly bold way)

elfin; elfish; elvish (usually good-naturedly mischievous)

arch; impish; implike; mischievous; pixilated; prankish; puckish; wicked (naughtily or annoyingly playful)

frisky; kittenish (playful like a lively kitten)

ludic (relating to play or playfulness)

mocking; quizzical; teasing (playfully vexing (especially by ridicule))

Attribute:

fun; playfulness (a disposition to find (or make) causes for amusement)

Antonym:

unplayful (completely lacking in playfulness)

Derivation:

playfulness (a festive merry feeling)

 Context examples 

He forgot that she had made life a burden to him, and when she disported herself around him he responded solemnly, striving to be playful and becoming no more than ridiculous.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

She asked me this so kindly, and with such a gentle air, half playful and half sorrowful, that I was quite touched.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Accordingly, with a mixture of the serious and the playful, which she hoped would best suit his half and half state, she replied, I am very much astonished, Mr. Elton.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

He is full of spirits, playful as can be, but there is no vice in him.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

She told the story, however, with great spirit among her friends; for she had a lively, playful disposition, which delighted in anything ridiculous.

(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

And soon afterwards, on the second boy's violently pinching one of the same lady's fingers, she fondly observed, "How playful William is!"

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

‘Oh,’ said she, in her playful way, ‘you said that you were only my banker, and bankers never ask questions, you know.’

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He looked so earnest over it that I shall never again think that a man must be playful always, and never earnest, because he is merry at times.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

Everybody around her was gay and busy, prosperous and important; each had their object of interest, their part, their dress, their favourite scene, their friends and confederates: all were finding employment in consultations and comparisons, or diversion in the playful conceits they suggested.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

"For he did claw at himself, and leap about over the ice like a playful puppy, save from the way he growled and squealed it was plain it was not play but pain. Never did I see such a sight!"

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)