Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. The practice, especially in international politics, of seeking advantage by creating the impression that one is willing and able to push a highly dangerous situation to the limit rather than concede.
Wiktionary
- n. Pursuit of an advantage by appearing to be willing to risk a dangerous policy rather than concede a point.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. the policy or practise of pushing a dangerous situation to the brink of disaster (to the limits of safety), in order to achieve the most advantageous outcome; -- used especially of diplomatic maneuvers in crisis situations, and originally applied to the policies of John Foster Dulles under President Eisenhower.
WordNet 3.0
- n. the policy of pushing a dangerous situation to the brink of disaster (to the limits of safety)
Etymologies
- 1956. From brink + -manship. (Wiktionary)
Examples
“Dulles’s willingness to take risks, at least verbally, attached the word brinkmanship to him.”
“The stakes are high for both Harper and Ignatieff, and with the new polling numbers brinkmanship is inevitable.”
“So maybe Apple's anticompetitive brinkmanship is actually the best thing that could happen for everyone?”
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“Less belligerent in its audience pandering than its predecessors (less fart jokes, less homophobic subtext, and - thank Jesus - less squawking from Eddie Murphy), Shrek the Third may not give haters a migraine, but its lobotomized sense of comic brinkmanship is still without fun.”
“South Korean critics claim such brinkmanship is shortsighted.”
“Unspoken, yet unmistakable in all the brinkmanship was the 2012 election campaign, still 18 months away, with the White House and both houses of Congress at stake.”
“Tension is expected to grow due to North Korea's brinkmanship, which is now at its highest level," said Kim Yong-Hyun, a professor of North Korean studies at Dongguk University.”
“During that crucial epoch, Rand helped draw a sharp distinction between first-strike and second-strike nuclear deterrence, and the dangerously offense-oriented "brinkmanship" of the 1950s gave way to the more stable defensive posture of "mutual assured destruction.”
“BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: John, from a nation claiming to have a nuclear weapon, this kind of brinkmanship now carries a more ominous tone.”
“CONDOLEEZZA RICE, SECRETARY OF STATE: The international community does have at its disposal a number of tools to make it more difficult for North Korea to engage in this kind of brinkmanship and to engage in the continued pursuit of its nuclear weapons programs and its missile programs.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘brinkmanship’.
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Words build meanings from origins( et...
These come from gamma meditation ,I think.
discursive, exogenous, machinations, purportedly, sumptuous, congruity, cantankerous, incongruous, festoon, hessian, ratiocinative, stratigraphic and 2057 more...
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Neuro-logical ??
The discovering of neuro and phago-cyte nano-engineered biology...
opsoclonus, opsomania, speciefic, opsonin, reveal, parsec, stereopsis, scarious, ablative absolute, presage, requisitory, nuance and 62 more...
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Serendipity's Words
defenestration, mercurial, syzygy, wicked, iniquitous, metastable, demimonde, entropic, ephemeral, irreligious, frisbee, manifold and 474 more...
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Man
Everything that contains a man in it
taxman, salesman, common man, spaceman, neolithic man, straw man, seaman, fireman, spiderman, overman, old man, con man and 373 more...
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strangelyrouge's Words
glockenspiel, gewgaw, jetsam, flotsam, gripe, grab, wench, whilst, betwixt, hither, thither, yonder and 1034 more...
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AbraxasZugzwang's Words
atavism, abraxas, sisyphean, frust, fetus-in-fetu, arhythmically, queef, epidemiology, abecedarian, troglodyte, chiaroscuro, philology and 631 more...
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NTDW1
template, modal, sublingual, tandem, polycentric, septuagenarian, token, irrevocable, denotive, augural, aberrant, phlebotomy and 1188 more...
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Random
These are just some random words that I might find a list for someday.
troglodytism, chinkle, vasculum, sabz, cucullus, tricornigerous, cuboctahedron, eruca, gamp, pilum, taha, angelhood and 252 more...
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the omnibus
preponderance, idioglossia, acumen, heteronym, flux, anacoluthon, metonymy, impetus, constellation, exegesis, revelatory, cloistered and 877 more...
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Favourite Words
Just a bunch of words I like and wish I used more often in everyday speech.
adroit, soporific, ostensibly, prolific, auspicious, brio, mucilage, bromide, opprobrium, aplomb, invective, recalcitrant and 114 more...
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stpeter's Words
abase, abasement, abashed, abdicate, aberrant, abeyance, abhor, abhorrent, abide, abject, ablation, abnegation and 3536 more...
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lanklenmot's Words
ineluctable, prelapsarian, bien pensant, prospero, preternatural, gratifying, iconoclast, cineast, persnickety, tumescent, galvanize, pap and 889 more...
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dienekes's Words
chutzpah, lexicon, intrepid, pedagogical, schlemiel, schism, erudite, anathema, pugilist, jaunty, paradigm, automaton and 949 more...
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miscellanea
antimacassar, snootful, sessile, glagolitic, marrowsky, farrago, keel, calumny, rheum, talisman, tally, awry and 508 more...
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vivek's list
flibbertigibbet, droll, reticence, prelude, erinaceous, brinkmanship, depone, inaniloquent, limerance, pronk, onomatopoeia, oxymoron and 385 more...
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Factory Joe's Dictionary
The favorite and phantasmagorical word pickings of Chris Messina.
transmogrification, placelessness, surreal, believe, ambidextrous, brinkmanship, utter, sasquatch, serendipitous, opinion, ayatollah, skirmish and 66 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for brinkmanship.
maenki brinkmanship pol. = Politik am Rande des Abgrunds; Politik des äußersten Risikos Sep 4, 2009