MEANING
Involving gains for some participants that are exactly balanced by losses for others.
Use it for
describing a fixed total redistributed among participants; questioning the assumption that another person’s gain must be a loss; distinguishing balanced gains and losses from competition that can expand total benefitsIdentifies a relationship in which one participant’s gain is exactly balanced by another’s loss, not merely a competitive situation. Academic functions: Comparison / Contrast, Causation / Relationships, Analysis / Interpretation.
Words that belong together
- zero-sum game
- zero-sum situation
- zero-sum view of competition
On the page
With the number of seats fixed, reallocating seats between the two groups is a zero-sum change in their representation.
The critic questions the narrator’s zero-sum view of recognition, under which another writer’s success must diminish his own.
Word forms
- Base
- zero-sum
Usage notes
Established hyphenated adjective, usually before a noun: zero-sum game, zero-sum situation. Normally non-gradable; no comparative or superlative. Register: technical. Commonness: moderately common (qualitative editorial estimate, informed by dictionaries/corpus).
Practice this word in a sentenceYour margin notes
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