Other forms: players
A player is somebody taking part in a game — a football player, the players came out, a strong player. It is the ordinary word in every sport and every board game.
It also means a device for playing recordings: a CD player, a record player, a media player. And in business and politics, a player is somebody or something with real influence: a major player in the market. That figurative sense is common in journalism. Note the informal and dated sense of a player as somebody who manipulates romantic partners, which is worth recognising and probably not worth using.
1nounplayerSomebody taking part in a game or sport.
“Eleven players and one referee.”
2noundeviceA device for playing recorded sound or video.
“The CD player has not worked for years.”
3nounrealSomebody with real influence in a field.
“They are a serious player in that market now.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
player is a participant, or a device.
Old English plegere is play plus -er, and Old English plegian covered playing, exercising and even fighting. The narrowing to games happened in English rather than being inherited, which is why other Germanic languages divide the same ground differently.
Middle English
pleyer
English, today
player
From Middle English pleyer. From Middle English pleyer, playere, from Old English pleġere (“player, athlete, wrestler”), from Proto-West Germanic plegārī. Equivalent to play + er.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA