playactor

plural playactors

1. alternativeAlternative form of play-actor.

   "It's the playactor!" cried he, slashing at my cudgel.

   1884, Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

   2 more examples

   It is the oldest of saws that every great orator, whether secular or ecclesiastical, has in him many of the attributes of a playactor, and no one can have listened to the most successful of American preachers — Mr. Henry Ward Beecher — whose name has been so long before the public in connection with a painful and humiliating investigation — without seeing how closely his performances on the platform of Plymouth Church draw their inspiration from the stage.

   1876, Charles John Plumptre, King's college lectures on elocution, page 19

   He is Gāṅgo the playactor ("nata"). The stories connected with him, his son Jaya, also a playactor ("Jayanata), and the latter's wife Vidyutprabhā are probably baseless pleasantry.

   1963, Sukumar Sen Halāyudhamiśra, Sekasubhodaya of Halāyudha Miśra: Translated Into English and Edited with Notes and Introduction, page xv