Word.ws English Dictionary

for the love of the game

for the love of the game adverb: doing something for one's own enjoyment or other intrinsic desire to do so; not for other reasons such as money or other ulterior motives.

Adverb

for the love of the game (not comparable)

  1. (colloquial, idiomatic) Doing something for one's own enjoyment or other intrinsic desire to do so; not for other reasons such as money or other ulterior motives.
    • He didn't do it for the money; he did it for the love of the game.
    • Speaking to reporters in Chicago after his daily pickup game, the game's most accomplished player responded to a question about his potential comeback by simply saying: "I'm doing it for the love of the game. Nothing else. For the love the game."2001 September 11, Mike Wise, “PRO BASKETBALL: Jordan's Return More Likely As Drama Continues to Build”, in New York Times, archived from the original on 11 May 2014

Questions about for the love of the game

What does for the love of the game mean?
For the love of the game means doing something for one's own enjoyment or other intrinsic desire to do so; not for other reasons such as money or other ulterior motives.
What part of speech is for the love of the game?
For the love of the game is an adverb.

Words near for the love of the game in the dictionary

  1. for the love of Goddess
  2. for the love of me
  3. for the love of Mike
  4. for the love of Moses
  5. for the love of shit
  6. for the love of the game
  7. for the lulz
  8. for the main
  9. for the mean time
  10. for the meantime
  11. for the moment

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: for the love of the game (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.

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