Word.ws English Dictionary

lose the battle, but win the war

lose the battle, but win the war verb: to fail to achieve intermediate steps or goals, but ultimately fulfill the broader objective.

Verb

lose the battle, but win the war (third-person singular simple present loses the battle, but wins the war, present participle losing the battle, but winning the war, simple past and past participle lost the battle, but won the war)

  1. To fail to achieve intermediate steps or goals, but ultimately fulfill the broader objective.
    • She might have done better than me in school, but I ultimately landed the higher-paying job. I lost the battle, but won the war.

Antonyms of lose the battle, but win the war

Forms of lose the battle, but win the war

third-person singular presentloses the battle, but wins the war
present participlelosing the battle, but winning the war
past participlelost the battle, but won the war
pastlost the battle, but won the war

Questions about lose the battle, but win the war

What does lose the battle, but win the war mean?
Lose the battle, but win the war means to fail to achieve intermediate steps or goals, but ultimately fulfill the broader objective.
What part of speech is lose the battle, but win the war?
Lose the battle, but win the war is a verb.
What is the past tense of lose the battle, but win the war?
The past tense of lose the battle, but win the war is lost the battle, but won the war.

Words near lose the battle, but win the war in the dictionary

  1. lose out
  2. lose patience
  3. lose sight of
  4. lose sleep
  5. lose steam
  6. lose the battle, but win the war
  7. lose the bell
  8. lose the bubble
  9. lose the dressing room
  10. lose the fang
  11. lose the number of one's mess

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: lose the battle, but win the war (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-lose the battle, but win the war.wav.

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