play to win
Word Rarity
Common
Frequency: Zipf frequency 5.18 in modern English
17
Scrabble Score
9
Letters
2
Syllables
9
Unique Chars
Meaning
verb
To play in an especially competitive, committed manner, focused intently on winning.
verb
To make a special, determined effort to achieve general success or a particular goal, in life, in one's career, in negotiation, etc.
Example Sentences
- ""[W]e just got totally outplayed. Instead of playing to win, we were playing not to lose.""
- ""I play to win. I am playing for human lives. This, sir, is the torture, marks of which you have seen on the prisoners; but your inexperience will not detect at a glance all the diabolical ingenuity and cruelty that lurks in this piece of linen and these straps of leather.""
- ""The difference between playing to win and playing not to lose is the difference between the successful executive and the security-hunting, mediocre man."
- "And Bullock could care less about the judge's threats. Like always, he was playing to win."
- "Rahm Emanuel was certainly a surprising choice for chief of staff — he's a hard-cussing, old-school-campaign knife fighter and pragmatic congressional arm twister who plays to win."
Inflected Forms
to play to win (canonical)
plays to win (present, singular)
playing to win (participle, present)
played to win (participle, past)
played to win (past)
Synonyms
do whatever it takes
pull out the stops