play Old Harry

English

Pronunciation

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Verb

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

1. (idiomatic) To play the devil; to make mischief.
   • 1901, Miles Franklin, “’Possum Gully Left Behind. Hurrah! Hurrah!”, in My Brilliant Career, Edinburgh, London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC, page 60:

     By his accent and innocent style I detected he was not a colonial, so I got him to relate his history. He was an Englishman by birth, but had been to America, Spain, New Zealand, Tasmania, &c.; by his own make out had ever been a man of note, and had played Old Harry everywhere.

   • 1916, John Buchan, Greenmantle:

     Blenkiron and I have been moving in the best circles as skilled American engineers who are going to play Old Harry with the British on the Tigris.

   • 1962, J. L. Austin, How to do things with words:

     I distinguish five more general classes: but I am far from equally happy about all of them. They are, however, quite enough to play Old Harry with two fetishes which I admit to an inclination to play Old Harry with, viz. (1) the true/false fetish, (2) the value/fact fetish.'