variants
or less commonly play-off
1
: a final contest, series of contests, or period of play to determine the winner between contestants or teams that have tied
a golf tournament decided by an 18-hole playoff
a sudden-death playoff
2
: a series of contests played after the end of the regular season to determine a championship
—usually plural except when used before another noun
Will you watch the playoffs?
got tickets to a playoff game
played off; playing off; plays off
1
a
: to set in opposition for one's own gain
b
: to set in contrast
2
: to complete the playing of (an interrupted contest)
3
: to break (a tie) by a playoff
Examples of playoff in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
Los Angeles Times, 28 Sep. 2024
Cleveland has reached the playoffs in back-to-back seasons and signed superstar guard Donovan Mitchell to a three-year, $150.3 million contract extension in July.
—Justin Birnbaum, Forbes, 28 Sep. 2024
Ian Millhiser, Vox, 9 Sep. 2024
In a lot of ways, our style has become much more casual, so our jewelry has this casual background to play off of.
—Camille Freestone, refinery29.com, 30 Aug. 2024
See all Example Sentences for playoff 
Noun
These guys slog through 162 games, not 82, only to be faced with a playoff format now so bloated that — this being baseball — the best team might not win, let alone reach the World Series (see: 2023, Texas Rangers, Arizona Diamondbacks).
—Los Angeles Times, 28 Sep. 2024
Cleveland has reached the playoffs in back-to-back seasons and signed superstar guard Donovan Mitchell to a three-year, $150.3 million contract extension in July.
—Justin Birnbaum, Forbes, 28 Sep. 2024
Verb
But the lack of factual evidence hasn’t stopped the GOP from pushing the nativist narrative, which seems designed to play off bigotry and suspicion against the mostly Black population of Haitian immigrants.
—Ian Millhiser, Vox, 9 Sep. 2024
In a lot of ways, our style has become much more casual, so our jewelry has this casual background to play off of.
—Camille Freestone, refinery29.com, 30 Aug. 2024
See all Example Sentences for playoff
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'playoff.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
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Cite this Entry
“Playoff.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/playoff. Accessed 2 Oct. 2024.
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