Shoo-in

noun, slang

noun, slang ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The winner of a fixed race, a fixed race.

    "Little Pete was a member of the delegation that were in on the "shoo" in the third race. He had several commissioners placing his coin on Model. If the race was to have been a "shoo-in" for Model, there must have been one or two owners that were not in on the deal."

  2. 2
    an easy victory wordnet
  3. 3
    A candidate or contestant generally agreed upon as the presumptive winner; a favorite, somebody who is well-liked or widely agreed upon. broadly, colloquial

    "She's very popular and good with numbers, so I expect she'll be a shoo-in for treasurer."

Synonyms

All synonyms
blowoutchampchampioncinchconquerorhero

Example

More examples

"The university president is a shoo-in to win another term in office."

Etymology

From a sense of the verb shoo, where racehorses would fall back and allow a chosen rider to win a fixed race. See 1910 quotation.

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