Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. of people or animals, to irritate, to ‘mess around’.

1836		Comic Almanack Feb. 47: Come, buffers and duffers, and dashers and smashers [...] Come, Billingsgate sinners, and cat and dog skinners, / And play up a game to make Decency stare: / A fig for propriety, sense and sobriety! / They never were known at fam’d bartelmy fair.
1888		‘Rolf Boldrewood’ Robbery Under Arms (1922) 272: I expect they’re going to play up a bit there, because of his following them.
1919		Marvel 1 Mar. 2: He played us up over that footer match.
1923		O. Onions Peace in Our Time 229: The more she tried to understand the more he ‘played up’.
1941		G. Kersh They Die with Their Boots Clean 83: Work willingly and do your best, and I’m your pal. Play me up and [...] I’ll make your life a misery for you.
1956		J. Curtis Look Long Upon a Monkey 200: A girl lost all respect when he made a fool of himself over an empty-headed little tart playing him up.
1966		P. Willmott Adolescent Boys of East London (1969) 139: Before long you’re monkeying about and playing up.
1982		(con. 1951) P. Bailey An Eng. Madam 68: She’ll play you up all the more if Melanie knew she was the reason.
1998		P. Bailey Kitty and Virgil (1999) 150: She [...] played up like the very devil when she was ten.

2. to break the rules, esp. sexually.

1865		‘The Brave Old Jock’ in Rambler’s Flash Songster 14: And at that time, when in his prime, / He stood so stiff and strong, / He play’d up hell, with every belle, / Among the genial throng.
1985		R.G. Barrett You Wouldn’t Be Dead for Quids (1989) 174: Billy intended playing up behind his wife’s back.
1999		G. Seal Lingo 198: If someone is playing up they are usually not doing what they should be doing and, in all likelihood, are doing it with a member of the opposite, or possibly the same, sex.

3. of a wound or disease, to cause discomfort, e.g. my bad arm’s playing me up today.

1914		Western Dly Press 3 Dec. 3/4: The wound of one side of the leg is very painful at times and it just about plays me up when the Sisters dress it.
1931		E. Bliss Saraband (1986) 10: Heart’s been playing me up again.
1937		J. Curtis You’re in the Racket, Too 240: That blister on his heel was playing him up a bit.
1956		‘Charles Raven’ Und. Nights 29: If the nerves of the team he was out with were playing them up a bit, he would sit on the safe while it blew under him, just to give them confidence.
1964		J. Orton Entertaining Mr Sloane Act II: My guts is playing up.
1970		Galton & Simpson ‘Cuckoo in the Nest’ Steptoe and Son [TV script] It’s our weather, it’s playing his war wound up.
1977		(con. 1941) R. Beilby Gunner 116: The old piles playing up a bit, are they?
1983		J. Sullivan ‘Homesick’ Only Fools and Horses [TV script] His legs are still playing him up.
1992		D. Jarman diary 2 Dec. Smiling in Slow Motion (2000) 271: My temperature is playing up and I am still terribly breathless.
2003		Indep. Rev. 1 Oct. 5: My Chalfonts are playing up something rotten.

4. (Aus.) to bet, to gamble (at a horserace); thus to spend in any context.

1900		Bulletin (Sydney) 29 Sept. 24/3: Resolved to ‘play-up’ their cash somehow, they bought a Chinese lottery-ticket and gathered-in £20 15s.
1903		‘Dads Wayback’ in Sun. Times (Sydney) 14 June 1/6: ‘I’ve played up seventeen millions o’ coin in ther last three years [...] an’ I'm proud on it. For all that coin was spent useful’ .

5. of machinery, or a thing, to malfunction.

1929		K.S. Prichard Coonardoo 232: ‘We’ll ride over to the Fifty Mile, if you feel like it. The mill wants looking to.’ Phyllis laughed happily. ‘The old Fifty Mile, still playing up, is she?’.
1999		G. Seal Lingo 198: When something is playing up it is not working properly.
2000		S. Travers Tomorrow To Be Brave 175: The car [...] had played up badly on the last two Jock Columns we had been on, stalling suddenly and not starting again easily.