Brinkmanship

//ˈbɹɪŋk.mən.ʃɪp// noun

noun ·Uncommon ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The pursuit of an advantage by appearing to be willing to take a matter to the brink (for example, by risking a dangerous policy) rather than to concede a point. uncountable, usually

    "The diplomat accused the other nation’s leader of brinkmanship for refusing to redeploy the troops along their nations’ shared border."

  2. 2
    the policy of pushing a dangerous situation to the brink of disaster (to the limits of safety) wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
adventurousnessappeasementaudaciousnessaudacitybalance of powerboldness

Example

More examples

"In the United States, Adlai Stevenson criticized the willingness of John Foster Dulles to threaten atomic war in confronting the Soviet Union; such military brinkmanship, he said, could eventually lead to annihilation of both countries."

Etymology

From brink (“border, edge”) + -manship (suffix denoting expertise, involvement, or special status in an area).

Related phrases

one upmanship

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