Playbook

How to spell playbook

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce playbook

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does playbook mean?

1. nounA set of established strategies, tactics, or standard responses used to handle a situation.
2. nounA book containing a team's diagrammed plays and set moves.

Playbook in a sentence

• The marketing team followed a familiar playbook to launch the product.

• The quarterback memorised the entire playbook before the season opener.

• Every new manager receives a playbook outlining how to handle complaints.

• The coach handed each rookie a thick playbook on the first day of training.

Where does playbook come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a modern English compound formed from two very old native words. "Play" descends from the Old English plega, meaning a brisk movement, sport, or contest, while "book" comes from the Old English boc, the word for a written record or volume. Joined together, the term first gained traction in American football during the early twentieth century, where a coach's playbook was the literal bound notebook diagramming each set move the team had rehearsed. From the gridiron the word spread into business, politics, and the military, where it came to mean any established collection of tactics or standard responses. Because both halves are everyday words, the only spelling caution is that it is written as a single solid word, with no space or hyphen between "play" and "book".

How the word is built

• play (a planned move or tactic)
• book (a bound collection)