winner-take-all
winner-take-all adjective: of or pertaining to a contest, election, or other competition in which only the winner is rewarded and none of the losers receive anything.
Adjective
winner-take-all (not comparable)
- Of or pertaining to a contest, election, or other competition in which only the winner is rewarded and none of the losers receive anything.
- You need luck in poker tournaments, because in the nature of this winner-take-all style of play, there will be several occasions when you cannot avoid putting all your money in the pot.1993 December 7, David Spanier, “Poker: Winner takes all”, in The Independent, UK, retrieved 20 May 2014
- Under winner-take-all elections, many minority candidates find it nearly impossible to win.2000 January 3, Kathleen L. Barber, “Letters: Diversity on the Ballot”, in New York Times, retrieved 20 May 2014
- Of a market in which a product or service that is only slightly better than its competitors receives a disproportionately large share of revenue.
- Of a neural network model: organized so that neurons in a layer compete with each other for activation.
Forms of winner-take-all
| alternative form | winner take all |
|---|---|
| alternative form | winner-takes-all |
| alternative form | winner takes all |
| alternative form | winners take all |
Questions about winner-take-all
- What does winner-take-all mean?
- Winner-take-all means of or pertaining to a contest, election, or other competition in which only the winner is rewarded and none of the losers receive anything.
- What part of speech is winner-take-all?
- Winner-take-all is an adjective.
Words near winner-take-all in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: winner-take-all (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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