Idiom
game, set, match
Meaning
An expression indicating finality, announcing that a series of events—usually involving some form of rivalry—has reached a conclusion.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Examples
“They scored the final goal, so it is game, set, match.”
“After the rival company went bankrupt, the CEO knew it was game, set, match for their competition.”
“With the last of the evidence presented to the jury, the prosecutor realized it was game, set, match for the defendant.”
Examples
simple
“They scored the final goal, so it is game, set, match.”
contextual
“After the rival company went bankrupt, the CEO knew it was game, set, match for their competition.”
complex
“With the last of the evidence presented to the jury, the prosecutor realized it was game, set, match for the defendant.”
Origin
The terminology originates from the scoring hierarchy of tennis, in which the three nouns represent consecutive layers of victory. A game consists of individual points; a set consists of games; a match consists of sets. The phrase describes the specific moment when the final point scored by the victor concludes all three tiers of the competition simultaneously.
The construction functions through a cumulative logic, where the final act satisfies the requirements of each constituent part. It is conceptually related to the idiomatic progression of time, in which a singular positive event is said to make one's day, one's week, and one's month.
Key words
Related idioms
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