Also bye-. [f. BY- 3 c + PLAY.]
1. Chiefly on the stage: Action carried on aside, and commonly in dumb-show, while the main action proceeds.
1812. L. Hunt, in Examiner, 21 Dec., 803/1. We need not point out these delicacies of bye-play.
1822. Blackw. Mag., XI. 536. If Mr. Kean were to fill up the intervals of his bye-play in tragedy by leaping through the back-scene.
1844. H. Rogers, Ess., I. II. 80. His opponent often has a byplay of malignity even when bestowing commendations.
1850. Blackie, Æschylus, I. Pref. 46. They probably neglected anything like by-play or making points, which are so effective on the English stage.
2. transf. Play or action apart from the main action in any acceptation.
1816. Edin. Rev., XXVI. 310. He is certainly most happy … in the by-play of his fictions.
1871. Earle, Philol. Eng. Tong. (1680), § 629. The various kinds of by-play in poetry, such as alliteration, rhyme, and assonance.
1878. Bosw. Smith, Carthage, 269. The tide of invasion … is broken up into a number of smaller currents, which … are often in the nature of by-play rather than have any direct bearing on the main issues of the war.
