Word.ws English Dictionary

go for broke

go for broke verb: to wager everything.

Verb

go for broke (third-person singular simple present goes for broke, present participle going for broke, simple past went for broke, past participle gone for broke)

  1. To wager everything.
  2. (idiomatic) To try everything possible or do every last thing possible in a final attempt.
    • These shoeless gladiators "shoot the works" or as they themselves term it "go for broke" in each game. They battle for every inch ...1931 September 19, "Loui", “Want a Lot of Action? See Barefoot Games”, in Honolulu Star-Bulletin, Honolulu, HI, page 11
    • Well, we shot the line and we went for broke
      With a thousand screamin' trucks
      An' eleven long-haired Friends a' Jesus
      In a chartreuse microbus.1975, “Convoy”, in C.W. McCall, Chip Davis (lyrics), Black Bear Road, performed by C. W. McCall

Forms of go for broke

third-person singular presentgoes for broke
present participlegoing for broke
pastwent for broke
past participlegone for broke

Origin of go for broke

From Hawaiian Pidgin craps slang, meaning “to wager everything on one roll”: one would be broke, i.e. bankrupt, if one lost. Popularized by the movie Go for Broke! (1951), which is named for the 442nd Infantry Regiment’s unit motto.

Questions about go for broke

What does go for broke mean?
Go for broke means to wager everything.
What part of speech is go for broke?
Go for broke is a verb.
What is the past tense of go for broke?
The past tense of go for broke is went for broke.

Words near go for broke in the dictionary

  1. go for
  2. go for a burton
  3. go for a song
  4. go for a toss
  5. go for an old song
  6. go for broke
  7. go for gold
  8. go for it
  9. go for nothing
  10. go for the gloves
  11. go for the gold

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: go for broke (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-au-go for broke.ogg.

Cite this entry: “go for broke.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/go_for_broke. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.