Word.ws English Dictionary

stand a chance

stand a chance verb: to have a chance, for the odds to somewhat be in someone's favor.

Verb

stand a chance (third-person singular simple present stands a chance, present participle standing a chance, simple past and past participle stood a chance)

  1. (idiomatic) To have a chance, for the odds to somewhat be in someone's favor.
    • You might as well give up: you don't stand a chance of winning!

Forms of stand a chance

third-person singular presentstands a chance
present participlestanding a chance
past participlestood a chance
paststood a chance

Questions about stand a chance

What does stand a chance mean?
Stand a chance means to have a chance, for the odds to somewhat be in someone's favor.
What part of speech is stand a chance?
Stand a chance is a verb.
What is the past tense of stand a chance?
The past tense of stand a chance is stood a chance.

Words near stand a chance in the dictionary

  1. Stanczak
  2. Stanczaks
  3. Stanczyk
  4. Stanczyks
  5. stand
  6. stand a chance
  7. stand and be counted
  8. stand and deliver
  9. stand and stir
  10. stand around
  11. stand aside

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: stand a chance (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: En-au-stand a chance.ogg.

Cite this entry: “stand a chance.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/stand_a_chance. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.