play with

English

play with (third-person singular simple present plays with, present participle playing with, simple past and past participle played with)

Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: play with.
The boy was playing with his toys.
- 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter IV, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:
  One morning I had been driven to the precarious refuge afforded by the steps of the inn, after rejecting offers from the Celebrity to join him in a variety of amusements. But even here I was not free from interruption, for he was seated on a horse-block below me, playing with a fox terrier.
(transitive) To fiddle with; make small adjustments to, for example to something mechanical in order to improve its performance.
(transitive) To trick.
- 2011 February 5, Chris Whyatt, “Wolverhampton 2-1 Man Utd”, in BBC:
  Breaking into the right side of Wolves' penalty area, he played with Elokobi over and over while ignoring both Dimitar Berbatov and Wayne Rooney as they lurked in the centre with arms aloft.
(transitive) To sexually stimulate (a person or a person's erogenous zone).
- 1992, Patrick Suraci, Male sexual armor, page 169:
  She laughed and started to play with me. I started getting hard and really got turned on. I liked her giving me all the attention. I begged her to suck my cock. I was ready to explode. She went down on me and I had a terrific orgasm.

literally

to fiddle with