play off against

play someone off against (someone else)

to scheme in a manner that pits two of your adversaries against one another. Bill wanted to beat me up and so did Bob. I did some fast talking, and they ended up fighting with each other. I really played Bill off against Bob. The president played the House off against the Senate and ended up getting his own way.

Common Names:

Name	Pronounced	Usage
Sung-Jin	sung-jeen	Korean
Benita	be-NEE-tah	Spanish
Beniamino	-	Italian
Gonzalez	[gɔn'za:lez]
KreŠImira	-	Croatian
Chinwendu	-	Western African, Igbo