What does "all-or-nothing" mean?

Being or relating to a situation where a dichotomy (a binary state) pertains: either of two poles is instantiated, with no intermediate state (e.g., a mixture or syncretism) being possible or being permitted.

What is a synonym for "all-or-nothing"?

Common synonyms include: all-or-none, all-or-none, black-and-white, dichotomous.

All-or-nothing

adj

adj ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Adjective

1
Being or relating to a situation where a dichotomy (a binary state) pertains: either of two poles is instantiated, with no intermediate state (e.g., a mixture or syncretism) being possible or being permitted. not-comparable
"Near-synonyms: black-and-white, dichotomous, all-or-none"
2
Being or relating to a situation where a dichotomy (a binary state) pertains: either of two poles is instantiated, with no intermediate state (e.g., a mixture or syncretism) being possible or being permitted.; Being or relating to a project that will either succeed completely or fail completely. not-comparable
"A crewed moonshot is an all-or-nothing affair: either they get to the moon and back alive, or they don't."

Adjective

1
occurring completely or not occurring at all wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms

all-or-none all-or-none black-and-white dichotomous

Example

More examples

"It was all-or-nothing and we struck out spectacularly."

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.