Word.ws English Dictionary

going for broke

going for broke is the present participle and gerund of go for broke.

Meaning of go for broke

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

Questions about going for broke

What is going for broke the present participle and gerund of?
Going for broke is the present participle and gerund of go for broke.

Words near going for broke in the dictionary

  1. going five-hole
  2. going for
  3. going for a Burton
  4. going for a song
  5. going for a toss
  6. going for broke
  7. going for gold
  8. going for it
  9. going for nothing
  10. going for the gloves
  11. going for the gold

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: going for broke (page history and authors); 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.

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