Word.ws English Dictionary

zero-sum game

zero-sum game noun: a game (or a similar political or economic system) in which the gains of some players must equal the losses of others.

Noun

zero-sum game (plural zero-sum games)

  1. A game (or a similar political or economic system) in which the gains of some players must equal the losses of others.
    • Dalio is right, but somewhat self-serving. If hedge-fund managers are playing a zero-sum game, what is their social utility? […] Can it really be in America’s interest to have so much of its young talent playing a zero-sum game?2011 July 18, John Cassidy, “Mastering the Machine”, in The New Yorker, →ISSN
    • A zero-sum game, as its name suggests, is one in which, whatever the outcome, the payoffs to the players add up to zero, which means that what one player gains, the other(s) must necessarily lose.2013, Andrew M. Colman, Game Theory and its Applications: In the Social and Biological Sciences, Psychology Press, →ISBN, page 55

zero-sum game meaning in Tamil, Persian and Vietnamese

zero-sum game in Tamil

சுழி விளைவு வினை

zero-sum game in Persian

system in which one player's winnings must equal losses of others
بازی مجموع-صفر bâzi-ye majmu'-sefr

zero-sum game in Vietnamese

system in which one player's winnings must equal losses of others
trò chơi có tổng bằng không

Examples of zero-sum game in a sentence

  • Listen, I know it's been hard / You know it’s no different for me / We’re less than a zero-sum game now / And baby, we both know that's not how it's supposed to be2014, “The Writing's On the Wall”, in Hungry Ghosts, performed by OK Go:
  • On the flight home after their first talks, a deflated Merkel concluded that Trump “looked at everything like the real estate developer he was before he entered politics” – as a zero-sum game.2024 November 21, Deborah Cole, “Merkel: I mistook Trump for ‘someone completely normal’”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:

Forms of zero-sum game

pluralzero-sum games

Questions about zero-sum game

What does zero-sum game mean?
Zero-sum game means a game (or a similar political or economic system) in which the gains of some players must equal the losses of others.
What is zero-sum game in Tamil?
Zero-sum game in Tamil is சுழி விளைவு வினை. See Zero-sum game meaning in Tamil.
How do you use zero-sum game in a sentence?
Listen, I know it's been hard / You know it’s no different for me / We’re less than a zero-sum game now / And baby, we both know that's not how it's supposed to be
What part of speech is zero-sum game?
Zero-sum game is a noun.
What is the plural of zero-sum game?
The plural of zero-sum game is zero-sum games.

Words near zero-sum game in the dictionary

  1. zero-rating
  2. zero-shadow day
  3. zero-shot
  4. zero-shot learning
  5. zero-sum
  6. zero-sum game
  7. zero-sum games
  8. zero-till
  9. zero-tillage
  10. zero-tilled
  11. zero-turn

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: zero-sum game (page history and authors); zero-sum game (Tamil Wiktionary) (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-us-zero-sum game.oga.

Cite this entry: “zero-sum game.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/zero-sum_game. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.