to play to win
9
3.6
- phrasal verb
:
jugar para ganar
- My philosophy is to go out there and play to win; just leave it on the field.
- always play to win
- play to win the game
How do you start playing to win instead of playing from fear?
- How do you start playing to win instead of playing from fear?
- So I've always said life is a game and you got to play to win.
- Don't miss next week's game phones, when Vernon Kay, Tiger Woods and Shane Warne will be playing to win some incredible prizes.
- But if you're not used in your team to be playing to win every day in Real Madrid, if we don't win two games in a row, it's crisis.
- But if you know you, you're, you're basically playing not to lose, but you're not playing to win.
- Everybody with me, OK, what happens You stop playing to win and you start playing not to lose.
- And this is something that I am heartbroken for other people if they're not playing to win.
Examples
-
They're playing to win, not just to convince themselves that they tried.
Blog text (2) -
You're gonna be focused and aggressive, and you're gonna play to win.
Fiction book (1997) -
How do you start playing to win instead of playing from fear?
-
And in order to play to win, you have to have a secure sense of self.
-
When I play, I play to win.
-
Then we can play to win.
-
We're still up against the most powerful industry in the history of the world, but we're playing to win.
Blog text (18) -
Americans play to win all the time.
-
I just figure that if we're gonna play, we should play like pros and play to win.
-
If we want to achieve our goals, we need to play to win in every competition.
Synonyms
983
2.6
Try to win against others who want the same thing
66
3.7
Compete with others to try to win something
50
6.2
To try very hard to win the same thing as someone else
33
2.8
To try to win something by competing with other people or groups
4
4.4
To try very hard to win first place in a competition
Antonyms
How Competitive
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly compositional: 'play' (participate) + 'to' (infinitive/purpose marker) + 'win' (succeed) yields 'play in order to win.' This verb + to‑infinitive purpose structure is common across languages, so a B1 learner who knows the constituent words will readily infer the intended meaning.
Etymology
Play to win comes from sports, where a coach tells players to play with the clear aim to win rather than just take part. That's why it means 'to compete trying to win'.