• Listen

  What it means

  “To give up / to admit defeat.” To stop fighting or trying and accept that you’ve lost or that something isn’t going to work.

  Vocabulary

  • dać — to give
  • wygrana — a win, victory
  • za wygraną — for won — as a fixed phrase: as a loss, as defeat

  Grammar note

  'Za wygraną' uses the accusative of 'wygrana' after 'za'. The phrase is always used with negation in the positive sense: 'nie dać za wygraną' means to refuse to give up.

  Cultural context

  'Nie dać za wygraną' (to not give up) is actually more common than the positive form.

  Intermediate

Noticed a typo, a wrong translation, or anything that doesn't look right? We'd love to fix it — just let us know via the contact page. Thank you!