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  1. parlay love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. v. To bet (an original wager and its winnings) on a subsequent event.
  2. v. To maneuver (an asset) to great advantage: parlayed some small investments into a large fortune.
  3. n. A bet comprising the sum of a prior wager plus its winnings or a series of bets made in such a manner.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. See parley.

Wiktionary

  1. v. transitive To carry forward the stake and winnings from a bet onto a subsequent wager.
  2. v. by extension To increase.
  3. v. To speak about peace. To have peace talks. See also: pow-wow.
  4. v. transitive To convert into something better
  5. n. Such a bet or series of bets.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. v. To wager the winnings plus the initial stake of one bet on a subsequent wager, or to engage in a series of such increased wagers.
  2. v. To exploit success in one endeavor so as to achieve greater success in subsequent endeavors.
  3. v. Fig., to transform a gain into something of greater value.
  4. n. The act of betting the winnings from a prior bet, plus the original stake, on a subsequent bet; the second or later such bet in a series; also, a series of such bets, with the stakes for later bets coming from the winnings of earlier bets.

WordNet 3.0

  1. v. stake winnings from one bet on a subsequent wager
  2. n. a series of wagers in which the winnings from one wager are used as a stake for the subsequent wagers

Etymologies

  1. Coined ca. 1828 as a verb, used as a noun ca. 1904. From French parler ("speak"). (Wiktionary)
  2. Alteration of paroli, staking of double the sum staked before in faro, from French, from obsolete Italian, probably from Italian parare, to place a bet, from Latin parāre, to prepare; see pare. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

Examples

  • “All of the individual bets must win, so a parlay is an all-or-nothing wager.”

    Archive 2009-04-01

  • “A parlay is a single wager that links together several individual bets.”

    Archive 2009-04-01

  • “So while the odds of hitting a parlay are smaller than winning a single bet, the payout for a winning parlay is much larger.”

    Archive 2009-04-01

  • “Delaware can only offer betting on at least three NFL games per wager, called parlay bets.”

    CourierPostOnline.com - News

  • “My guess is that the director intends to "parlay" this film into a feature, which will probably be sort of a "hipster" version of "Castaway.”

    Living in a World of Fools: How Deep is your Ride

  • “I can only imagine what kind of parlay I might have gotten in Vegas -- back when the Pats were 2-2 and had just lost to the woeful Redskins, and the LSU Tigers had been spanked by Florida -- picking LSU to win the national championship and the Pats to win the Super Bowl.”

    Newsweek: Starr Gazing: Owning the Season

  • “I think I will add "parlay" to my Beavis and Butthead word list.”

    Review: Call of Duty

  • “Well, it looks like somebody decided to "parlay" that short story into some movie bucks using some really blockbuster talent.”

    Paycheck

  • “If you're the gambling type, you may already know that "parlay" can also be used as a noun describing a series of bets in which a person places a bet, then puts the original stake of money and all of its winnings on new wagers.”

    Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day

  • “Just last week, 19-year-old YouTube sensation Chris Crocker - you know, the kid behind that "LEAVE BRITNEY ALONE" clip (below; clip contains some NSFW language) - was telling EW's Tim Stack that he was hoping to score his own reality show soon: "'I'm trying to kind of parlay this into a ticket out of here.”

    Entertainment Weekly's PopWatch

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hypernyms (8)

Words that are more generic or abstract

  1. stake
  1. béton
  1. punt
  1. back
  1. game
  1. gage
  1. bet
  1. wager

same context (22)

Words that are found in similar contexts

  1. cuan
  2. creditorii
  3. sensazione
  4. opuscolo
  1. abest
  2. interviu
  3. investigat
  4. five-foot
  1. andado
  2. Mme.
  3. certamente
  4. caldo
  1. zj
  2. c'etait
  3. gamelan
  4. revient
  1. eppur
  2. governo
  3. pensar
  4. l'uomo
  1. diera
  2. particulierement

reverse dictionary (1)

Words that contain this word in their definition

  1. pyramid

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‘parlay’ has been looked up 2773 times, loved by 6 people, added to 28 lists, and has a Scrabble score of 11.