toss-up

See also: tossup and toss up

English

Alternative forms

• tossup

Etymology

Deverbal from toss up.

Pronunciation

• Audio (US):

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• Audio (General Australian):

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Noun

toss-up (plural toss-ups)

1. (idiomatic) A decision in which neither choice is clearly favorable or unfavorable, or for which the outcome does not matter.

   It's really a toss-up between the red skirt with blue stripes and the blue skirt with red stripes. They both look good and fit well.

2. Either of two outcomes that are equally likely.
   • 2013 January 11, Tom Shone, The Guardian‎^[1]:

     No longer is the best picture going to be a toss-up between that troika of national-historical heavies: Argo, Lincoln and Zero Dark Thirty. Instead, a warm welcome back for Life of Pi, widely dismissed by many as "this year's Hugo" but this column's dark-horse pick from October.

3. The toss of a coin used to decide some issue.

Derived terms

• toss-up question

 

Translations

a decision in which neither choice is clearly favorable or unfavorable, or for which the outcome does not matter

• Hungarian: egyre megy, mindegy (hu)
• Italian: incerto (it)

either of two outcomes that are equally likely

• Hungarian: kétesélyes (hu), kérdéses (hu)
• Polish: no equivalent term in Polish, but see na dwoje babka wróżyła (pl)
• Spanish: incertidumbre (es) f, sorteamiento m, tómbola (es) f, sorteo (es) m

the toss of a coin used to decide some issue

• Bulgarian: жребий (bg) m (žrebij)
• Hungarian: pénzfeldobás (hu)

Anagrams

• spouts, stoups, uptoss