Word.ws English Dictionary

name of the game

name of the game noun: the essential element (needed to reach the principal goal or objective); the overall purpose.

Noun

name of the game

  1. (idiomatic, informal, almost always preceded by the) The essential element (needed to reach the principal goal or objective); the overall purpose.
    • In the microprocessor business, speed is the name of the game.
    • Behind the turntables is DJ Train / Mixin' and scratchin' is the name of the game1988, “Supersonic”, performed by J. J. Fad

Questions about name of the game

What does name of the game mean?
Name of the game means the essential element (needed to reach the principal goal or objective); the overall purpose.
What part of speech is name of the game?
Name of the game is a noun.

Words near name of the game in the dictionary

  1. name droppings
  2. name drops
  3. name for
  4. name it, claim it
  5. name names
  6. name of the game
  7. name one's poison
  8. name part
  9. name parts
  10. name plate
  11. name plates

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: name 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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-name of the game.ogg.

Cite this entry: “name of the game.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/name_of_the_game. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.