Win

How to spell win

3 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce win

What does win mean?

1. verbTo be victorious in a contest, competition, or conflict, or to gain something through effort.
2. nounA victory or successful result in a contest or endeavour.

Win in a sentence

• verb

  The team hoped to win the championship for the first time in years.

• noun

  A narrow win on Saturday put the club back at the top of the table.

• verb

  She worked hard to win the trust of her new colleagues.

• noun

  Closing the deal early was a real win for the whole department.

Where does win come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a thoroughly native English word, descending from the Old English verb winnan, which originally meant 'to labour, to strive, to struggle, or to fight'. That sense was about effort and conflict rather than triumph, and it comes from a shared Germanic root that also produced the Dutch winnen and the German gewinnen, both meaning 'to gain'. Over the medieval period the meaning narrowed and brightened from the broad idea of struggling toward something to the modern sense of actually gaining or being victorious. The old labouring sense survives faintly in expressions about winning your bread or winning ground. The spelling has stayed mercifully simple, a short, blunt three letters that has changed little in well over a thousand years.

How the word is built

• win (from Old English winnan: to strive, struggle, fight)