brinkmanship
Syllables: brink·man·shipUK/ˈbɹɪŋk.mən.ʃɪp//ˈbɹɪŋk.mənˌʃɪp/
brinkmanship noun: the pursuit of an advantage by appearing to be willing to take a matter to the brink (for example, by risking a dangerous policy) rather than to concede a point.
Noun
brinkmanship (usually uncountable, plural brinkmanships)
- The pursuit of an advantage by appearing to be willing to take a matter to the brink (for example, by risking a dangerous policy) rather than to concede a point.
- The diplomat accused the other nation's leader of brinkmanship for refusing to redeploy the troops stationed along their nations' shared border.
- They say that in ancient times the Romans used to take cold showers before deciding on important questions. Perhaps, this should be recommended to some excessively ardent supporters of the policy of brinkmanship.1959 July, Nikita Khrushchev, “World Affairs”, in [anonymous], transl., Soviet World Outlook: A Handbook of Communist Statements (Department of State Publication; 6836; European and British...
Examples of brinkmanship in a sentence
- It is high time to look back from the abyss where we are going to step in and give up the brinkmanship until the point of no return is reached.1972 April–June, Salil Dutta, “Reviews and Notices of Books: Mahaprolay Ki Ghoney Asche? (Are the Last Days Nearer?) By Jagannath...
- Debt ceiling brinkmanship in 2011 sent stocks tumbling, slowed economic growth and prompted analysts to downgrade the country’s credit rating for the first time.2021 September 23, David Leonhardt, Ian Prasad Philbrick, “Congressional brinkmanship”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York...
Forms of brinkmanship
| plural | brinkmanships |
|---|---|
| alternative form | brinksmanship |
Origin of brinkmanship
From brink (“border, edge”) + -manship (suffix denoting expertise, involvement, or special status in an area).
Words formed from brinkmanship
Questions about brinkmanship
- What does brinkmanship mean?
- Brinkmanship means the pursuit of an advantage by appearing to be willing to take a matter to the brink (for example, by risking a dangerous policy) rather than to concede a point.
- How do you use brinkmanship in a sentence?
- It is high time to look back from the abyss where we are going to step in and give up the brinkmanship until the point of no return is reached.
- What part of speech is brinkmanship?
- Brinkmanship is a noun.
- How do you pronounce brinkmanship?
- Brinkmanship is pronounced /ˈbɹɪŋk.mən.ʃɪp/ (UK).
- What is the plural of brinkmanship?
- The plural of brinkmanship is brinkmanships.
Words near brinkmanship in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: brinkmanship (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-brinkmanship.ogg.
Cite this entry: “brinkmanship.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/brinkmanship. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.