Word.ws English Dictionary

play it for all it's worth

play it for all it's worth verb: to take full advantage of.

Verb

play it for all it's worth (third-person singular simple present plays it for all it's worth, present participle playing it for all it's worth, simple past and past participle played it for all it's worth)

  1. (idiomatic) to take full advantage of
  2. (idiomatic) To go the maximum extent; to go all the way
    • I tell you-all boys, when you-all got a hunch, play it for all it's worth. What's luck good for, if you all ain't to ride it? And when you-all ride it, ride like hell.1910 October, Jack London, Burning Daylight, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company, →OCLC

Forms of play it for all it's worth

third-person singular presentplays it for all it's worth
present participleplaying it for all it's worth
past participleplayed it for all it's worth
pastplayed it for all it's worth

Questions about play it for all it's worth

What does play it for all it's worth mean?
Play it for all it's worth means to take full advantage of.
What part of speech is play it for all it's worth?
Play it for all it's worth is a verb.
What is the past tense of play it for all it's worth?
The past tense of play it for all it's worth is played it for all it's worth.

Words near play it for all it's worth in the dictionary

  1. play into the hand of
  2. play into the hands of
  3. play it cheap
  4. play it close to the hip
  5. play it cool
  6. play it for all it's worth
  7. play it pear-shaped
  8. play it safe
  9. play it straight
  10. play like
  11. play merry havoc with

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: play it for all it's worth (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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