Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • intransitive verb To achieve victory or finish first in a competition.
  • intransitive verb To achieve success in an effort or venture.
  • intransitive verb To achieve victory or finish first in.
  • intransitive verb To receive as a prize or reward for performance.
  • intransitive verb To achieve or obtain by effort.
  • intransitive verb To gain (respect or love, for example) by effort: synonym: earn.
  • intransitive verb To make (one's way) with effort.
  • intransitive verb To reach with difficulty.
  • intransitive verb To take in battle; capture.
  • intransitive verb To succeed in gaining the affection or loyalty of (someone).
  • intransitive verb To succeed in gaining the favor or support of; prevail on.
  • intransitive verb To discover and open (a vein or deposit) in mining.
  • intransitive verb To extract from a mine or from mined ore.
  • noun A victory, especially in a competition.
  • noun First place in a competition.
  • noun An amount won or earned.
  • idiom (win the day) To be successful.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A victory; a success; an act of winning.
  • To dry or season by exposure to the wind or air: as, to win hay; to win peats.
  • noun Strife; contention.
  • To win; succeed.
  • To acquire by labor, effort, or struggle; secure; gain.
  • Specifically
  • To gain by competition or conquest; take, as from an opponent or enemy; obtain as victor.
  • To earn: as, to win one's bread.
  • To obtain; derive; get: as, to win ore from a mine.
  • To be successful or victorious in: as, to win a game or a battle.
  • To accomplish by effort; achieve, effect, or execute; succeed in making or doing.
  • To reach; attain to; arrive at, as a goal or destination; gain; get to.
  • To cause to attain to or arrive at; hence, to bring; convey.
  • To gain the affection, regard, esteem, compliance, favor, etc., of; move to sympathy, agreement, or consent; gain the good will of; gain over or attract, as to one's self, one's side, or one's cause; in general, to attract.
  • To prevail on; induce.
  • In mining, to sink down to (a bed of coal) by means of a shaft; prepare (a bed of coal) for working by doing the necessary preliminary dead-work: also applied to beds of ironstone and other ores.
  • In the United States the word win, as used in mining, has frequently a more general meaning; it is thus defined in the glossary of the Pennsylvania Survey: “To mine, to develop, to prepare for mining.” See winning.
  • To strive; vie; contend.
  • To struggle; labor; work.
  • To succeed; gain one's end; especially, to be superior in a contest or competition; gain the victory; prove successful: as, let those laugh who win.
  • To reach; attain; make one's way; succeed in making one's way: with to.
  • To get; succeed in getting: as, to win in (to get in); to win through; to win loose; to win up, down, or away; to win on (to get on, either literally or figuratively).
  • To gain ground on; gain upon.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • intransitive verb To gain the victory; to be successful; to triumph; to prevail.
  • intransitive verb [Obs.] to be conqueror over.
  • intransitive verb To gain ground on.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English winnen, from Old English winnan, to fight, strive; see wen- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English winnen, from Old English winnan ("to labour, swink, toil, trouble oneself; resist, oppose, contradict; fight, strive, struggle, rage; endure") (compare Old English ġewinnan ("conquer, obtain, gain; endure, bear, suffer; be ill")), from Proto-Germanic *winnanan (“to swink, labour, win, gain, fight”), from Proto-Indo-European *wen- (“to strive, wish, desire, love”). Cognate with Dutch winnen, German gewinnen, Swedish vinna.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English winne, wunne, from Old English wynn ("joy, rapture, pleasure, delight, gladness"), from Proto-Germanic *wunjō (“joy, delight, pleasure, lust”), from Proto-Indo-European *wen- (“to strive, wish, desire, love”). Cognate with German Wonne ("bliss, joy, delight"), Danish ynde ("grace"), Icelandic yndi ("delight").

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English winn, winne, from Old English winn ("toil, labor, trouble, hardship; profit, gain; conflict, strife, war"), from Proto-Germanic *winnan (“labour, struggle, fight”), from Proto-Indo-European *wen- (“to strive, desire, wish, love”). Cognate with German Gewinn ("profit, gain").

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Examples

  • I said this in the Ferraro thread, but both CNN and MSNBC are reporting the Texas caucus win as an official * win* (CNN's changed their map.)

    Obama Wins Mississippi, Networks Say 2009

  • _ Raleigh's good, damn good; it hasn't lost a game this season -- and we've got to win, _win_!

    The Plastic Age Percy Marks 1923

  • He would follow her and win her, -- yea, _win_ the woman God had made for him and him alone, and into his eyes leapt the expression of the conquering male, the force God had created within him to reach for the woman sublime and cherish her.

    Rose O'Paradise Grace Miller White 1912

  • JBL Risk Manager allows for both Long and Short selling, manage unlimited Multiple Portfolios, allow for Stock Split Adjustment, allows for your brokerage fees and charges, risk tolerance selection, reports on your portfolio performance with average % win/loss, $win/loss, Trade Expectancy, sell alerts and much more, all simple to follow with a detailed Help file.

    WN.com - Financial News 2010

  • JBL Risk Manager allows for both Long and Short selling, manage unlimited Multiple Portfolios, allow for Stock Split Adjustment, allows for your brokerage fees and charges, risk tolerance selection, reports on your portfolio performance with average % win/loss, $win/loss, Trade Expectancy, sell alerts and much more, all simple to follow with a detailed Help file.

    WN.com - Financial News 2010

  • JBL Risk Manager allows for both Long and Short selling, manage unlimited Multiple Portfolios, allow for Stock Split Adjustment, allows for your brokerage fees and charges, risk tolerance selection, reports on your portfolio performance with average % win/loss, $win/loss, Trade Expectancy, sell alerts and much more, all simple to follow with a detailed Help file.

    WN.com - Business News 2010

  • JBL Risk Manager allows for both Long and Short selling, manage unlimited Multiple Portfolios, allow for Stock Split Adjustment, allows for your brokerage fees and charges, risk tolerance selection, reports on your portfolio performance with average % win/loss, $win/loss, Trade Expectancy, sell alerts and much more, all simple to follow with a detailed Help file.

    WN.com - Business News 2010

  • JBL Risk Manager allows for both Long and Short selling, manage unlimited Multiple Portfolios, allow for Stock Split Adjustment, allows for your brokerage fees and charges, risk tolerance selection, reports on your portfolio performance with average % win/loss, $win/loss, Trade Expectancy, sell alerts and much more, all simple to follow with a detailed Help file.

    WN.com - Financial News 2010

  • Ernie Els. The Monday win at the Arnold Palmer Invitational was on Tiger's turf, and even though Tiger was a few miles away at Isleworth, readying for the Masters, don't think Els.'win wasn't a reverberation that resonated.

    Yahoo! Sports - Top News 2010

  • Ernie Els. The Monday win at the Arnold Palmer Invitational was on Tiger's turf, and even though Tiger was a few miles away at Isleworth, readying for the Masters, don't think Els.'win wasn't a reverberation that resonated.

    Yahoo! Sports - Top News 2010

Comments

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  • I like win in particular as an adjective where it might be synonymous with awesome.

    December 11, 2007