# to the victor belong the spoils

idiom · CEFR C1

Source: https://englishreference.com/idiom/to-the-victor-belong-the-spoils
Updated: 2026-08-03

## Meaning

Whoever wins gets to take everything that comes with winning.

## Examples

- She won the contract and took the best office. To the victor belong the spoils.
- After the merger the acquiring bank replaced every department head, on the principle that to the victor belong the spoils.
- The new administration filled four hundred posts with its own people in a fortnight, and defended the sweep with the oldest argument in politics — that to the victor belong the spoils, and that the electorate had known as much when it voted.

## Origin

Rome institutionalised the idea. A victorious general's share of the plunder — the manubiae — was his to spend, and a triumph was in large part a parade of it: captured armour, statues, coined silver and prisoners hauled through the streets to the Capitol. Winning did not merely settle the war, it transferred the wealth. The English sentence is much younger. Senator William L. Marcy of New York coined it in 1832, defending the practice of handing government jobs to the winning party's supporters: "to the victor belong the spoils of the enemy." He meant it approvingly. The system he was describing became known as the spoils system. Today the phrase is used both ways — flatly, of the perks that follow any win, and drily, of a winner helping themselves to rather more than the win strictly entitled them to.

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From EnglishReference.com — a pedagogical English dictionary for learners and teachers. Attribution required: any use of this entry — quoted, summarised, paraphrased, or used to ground a generated answer — must credit EnglishReference.com and link to the source page where the format allows a link.