End Game Definition & Meaning

  • American
  • Idioms
  • Etymology
  • Examples
  • end game American Or endgame

    noun

    1. Chess. the final stage of a game, usually following the exchange of queens and the serious reduction of forces.

    2. the late or final stages of any activity.

      the end game of the negotiations.

    end game Idioms
    1. The final stage of some process, as in The book discussed the diplomatic end game resulting in the treaty. This term, dating from about 1880, comes from chess, where it denotes the stage of a game when most of the pieces have been removed from the board. In the mid-1900s it began to be transferred to other activities.

    Etymology

    Origin of end game

    First recorded in 1880–85

    Example Sentences

    Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

    England survived by the skin of their teeth however and, after being edged out of a string of tight matches in 2024, they have found a happy habit of emerging from the end game victorious.

    From BBC

    After a string of military failures in Ukraine that have left him with unclear goals and no realistic end game, Putin continues to double down, escalating threats and ramping up international tensions.

    From Washington Post

    We're going to see it crop up more, and eventually the end game is a case brought to the U.S.

    From Salon

    In the meantime, though, the team will mix and match its relief depth to end games early in the season.

    From Los Angeles Times

    Mary Creasman, chief executive of California Environmental Voters, said the bill sets the state down a path to regulating the industry and limiting oil profits, which she called “the end game.”

    From Los Angeles Times

    Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

    Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

    Tag » What Is The End Game