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play the heavy



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Idioms and Phrases

Act the part of a villain; take the blame for unkind behavior. For example, She can't bear firing an employee, so she relies on Jim to play the heavy . This colloquial term comes from the theater, where heavy has been used for a stern, serious role or that of a villain since the early 1800s.

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

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