To behave fairly and honorably; also, to go along with a particular set of rules. The first meaning of this term was already being applied in Chaucer’s time, but it did not come into wide use until the late nineteenth century. Rudyard Kipling, that quintessential Victorian, used it (The Maltese Cat, 1898), “Play the game, don’t talk.” This usage, however, is obsolescent, at least in America. Another version of the term appears in the poem “Alumnus Football” by the American sportswriter Grantland Rice (1880–1954), which itself gave rise to a slightly different cliché: “For when the One Great Scorer comes to write against your name, He marks—not that you won or lost—but how you played the game.” In contrast, the very similar to play games, or playing games, means to act evasively or deceitfully, as in: “Her ex-husband is playing games about child-support payment.”