playtoy

English

Etymology

play +‎ toy

Noun

playtoy (plural playtoys)

1. A plaything.
   • 1724, William Burkitt, Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament, London, 1739, "Hebrews" Chapter 11, p. 742,^[1]

     [Moses] did not only […] at three Years old cast a Crown, [given] him for a Play-toy, to the Ground, and trample it under his Feet; but as the Apostle says here, when he came to be a Man, he treated it with no more Respect, but refused to be called the Son of Pharaoh’s Daughter.

   • 1907, Barbara Baynton, edited by Sally Krimmer and Alan Lawson, Human Toll (Portable Australian Authors: Barbara Baynton), St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, published 1980, page 167:

     'A nice play-toy that for a respectable girl' said the shocked parson, his lean fingers indicating the naked, maimed doll and its unabashed mother.

   • 1969, Maya Angelou, chapter 18, in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings‎^[2], New York: Bantam, published 1971, page 104:

     It took some time for the singers to come off their level of exaltation, but the minister stood resolute until the song unwound like a child’s playtoy and lay quieted in the aisles.

   • 1973 March 26, “Blacks v. Feminists”, in Time:

     To blacks, adds Editor-Publisher Ida Lewis, Women’s Lib is merely “a playtoy for middle-class white women.”