Word.ws English Dictionary

win the battle, but lose the war

win the battle, but lose the war verb: to achieve a portion of a goal, but fail to achieve the entire goal.

Verb

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

  1. (idiomatic) To achieve a portion of a goal, but fail to achieve the entire goal.
    • By turning in that one assignment, you may have won the battle, but you never turned anything else in, so in the end you lost the war.

Forms of win the battle, but lose the war

third-person singular presentwins the battle, but loses the war
present participlewinning the battle, but losing the war
past participlewon the battle, but lost the war
pastwon the battle, but lost the war

Questions about win the battle, but lose the war

What does win the battle, but lose the war mean?
Win the battle, but lose the war means to achieve a portion of a goal, but fail to achieve the entire goal.
What part of speech is win the battle, but lose the war?
Win the battle, but lose the war is a verb.
What is the past tense of win the battle, but lose the war?
The past tense of win the battle, but lose the war is won the battle, but lost the war.

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

  1. win out
  2. win over
  3. win round
  4. win some, lose some
  5. win someone's heart
  6. win the battle, but lose the war
  7. win the day
  8. win the lottery
  9. win through
  10. win up
  11. win-win

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: win the battle, but lose 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: En-au-win the battle, but lose the war.ogg.

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