Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US) exhausted, worn-out, finished, no longer of interest or value.

1851		C.L. Canfield Diary of a Forty-Niner (1906) 85: Our claim is pretty nearly played out.
1864		J.F. Brobst letter in Brobst Well Mary, Civil War Letters 43: I am most frozen out and nearly played out and I expect I shall soon be rubbed out.
1870		Constitutionalist (Elyria, OH) 30 Mar. 4/1: ‘There sir,’ said Dowlas [...] what do you think of that?’ ‘O, that’s played out,’ said the American. [...] ‘It’s played, I tell you.’.
1883		‘Mark Twain’ Life on the Mississippi (1914) 392: That’s all played now.
1887		E. Custer Tenting on the Plains (rev. edn 1895) 183: He said, an alligator, so I started off to see the animal, and when I found it, what do you think it was, but an old Government mule that had died because it was played out!
1893		P.H. Emerson Signor Lippo 33: Now if you was to sing nigger songs you would soon get blown away. They’re clean played out.
1895		C. Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 59: Played Out, exhausted.
1897		Outing (N.Y.) XXIX 421/2: He’s about played [DA].
1900		O. Wister Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories 282: These hawsses [...] are played out.
1900		T.J. Carey Hebrew Yarns and Dialect Humor 81/2: And if a proper reproof you should offer, / They tell you ‘that game is quite played.’.
1911		J. Lomax Cowboy Songs 183: For the team and I and Betsy were all of us played out.
1920		S. Lewis Main Street (1921) 24: You’re kind of played out, after this long trip.
1922		Joyce Ulysses 596: In a hundred million years the coal seam of the sister island would be played out.
1931		‘Toledo Slim’ in Irwin Amer. Tramp and Und. Sl. 228: And so I’m on the bum, boys, played out and feeling sore.
1945		B. Charles diary 8 Dec. in Garfield Our Hidden Lives (2004) 143: I thought he looked very seedy and ‘played out’.
1951		S. Lewis World So Wide 39: Hay! Is Europe all played out?
1964		B. Jackson Get Your Ass in the Water (1974) 124: That old bullshit’s about played out.
1973		Sun. Times Mag. 7 Oct. 46: They will have a few good years for crops. And then – it’ll be played out.
1985		T.R. Houser Central Sl. 41: played out [...] ‘We don’t call the police blue clothes anymore, that’s played out.’.
1992		D. Burke Street Talk 2 434: This party’s played [...] I’m breakin’ out.
1996		H. Roth From Bondage 293: He felt played out – depleted.
2000		Indep. Rev. 12 Jan. 4: I’m played out, time to jet.

2. in attrib. use of sense 1.

1865		Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 18/2: ‘Bursting’ was getting to be a played-out ‘game’ with me.
1967		P. Thomas Down These Mean Streets (1970) 123: So yuh ain’t never run into that played-out shit of ‘If you white, tha’s all right. / If you black, da’s dat.’.