play of color

新型コロナの影響により図書館が長い間利用できない期間があったので、２０年以上前に買ってほとんど読まなかった 529ページもある 'Merriam-Webster's Vocabulary Builder' を読み始めました。
読んで見ると結構興味が湧く内容で語彙を増やすには役に立ちそうです。
iridescentは知っている単語ですが、その説明文に出てきた "play" が気になりました。
iridescent: Having a glowing, rainbowlike play of color that seems to change as the light shifts
Iris, the Greek goddess of the rainbow, took messages from Mount Olympus to earth, and from gods to mortals or other gods, using the rainbow as her stair way.
Iridescence is thus the glowing, shifting, colorful quality of a rainbow, also seen in an opal, a light oil slick, a butterfly wing, or the mother-of-pearl that lines an oyster shell.
"play" を辞書で確認します。
・Vocabulary.com: a weak and tremulous light: "the play of light on the water”
・WordNet: a weak and tremulous light; "the shimmer of colors on iridescent feathers"; "the play of light on the water"
この "play" は動詞でも次の例が出ていました。
・Macmillan Dictionary: if something such as light plays somewhere, it moves quickly over a surface, appearing in different places for a very short time: Moonlight played on the surface of the lake.