play close v.
(US black) to become intimate with, esp. with the aim of using one’s supposed friend for one’s own purposes.
![]() | Buppies, B-Boys, Baps and Bohos (1994) 60: He could have been wondering why this fool in the car was playing him so close. | ‘CPT Time’ in|
![]() | 🎵 And you play me close, for sure Imma pop my heat / Niggas sayin they gone merk 50 How? We ridin around wit guns the size of Lil’ Bow Wow. | ‘Wanksta’
In phrases
1. (US black) to involve oneself too intimately and without invitation in another person’s life.
![]() | Jailhouse Jargon and Street Sl. [unpub. ms.]. | |
![]() | 🎵 I’d shoot that fool / If he played me too close and tried to test my cool. | ‘Ghetto’|
![]() | Prison Sl. 93: When one inmate tells another he is playing me too close, he is insinuating that he is becoming angry and the other should stop teasing or harassing him. |
2. to tease or intimidate someone.
![]() | 🎵 on BNTHResurrection [album] My nigga don’t play too close, my thugs in heaven and shit / My niggas’ll pop with the pistols, and snap out the holsters / And cover a snitch all wet. | ‘Can’t Give it Up’