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play the devil with
Idioms and Phrases
Upset, ruin, make a mess of, as in This weather plays the devil with my aching joints , or Wine stains play the devil with a white tablecloth . This allusion to diabolical mischief is heard more in Britain than in America. [Mid-1500s] Also see the synonym play havoc .Example Sentences
I’ll play the devil with her and teach her how to treat her husband another time, for ‘a woman who has not been beaten is like a broken mill.’
But these blamed fancy flips are what play the devil with a fellow.
Economy would play the devil with me, Harvey.
Foreign languages and foreign cooking and all that would play the devil with me.
Bedevil, be-dev′il, v.t. to throw into confusion: to 'play the devil' with: to torment: to treat with devilish malignity.—pass. to be possessed of a devil, to be devil-rid.—n.
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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
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