Game theory

The very first entry is le joueur, and it carries more than this page asks of it. Here it is the player, anyone who chooses a move and collects a payoff, and that sense crosses into English without trouble. Outside the textbook the same word does two further jobs that English hands to separate words. Said of a person with no game named, c’est un joueur can mean a gambler, someone who cannot walk past a casino, and un joueur invétéré is an inveterate one. As an adjective it describes a temperament rather than an activity: un chaton joueur is a playful kitten, and elle est d’humeur joueuse says she is in a playful mood. Behind all three stands the verb jouer, which plays, gambles and stakes in one breath, so that jouer gros is to play for high stakes. A sentence such as il est trop joueur pour ce poste is therefore not about sport at all. It says that he takes risks for the pleasure of taking them, which is a remark about his character and not about any game he has been asked to play.