Dictionary

only game in town en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• (Australia) audio

Etymology

An allusion to a gambling venue.

Meanings

1. (idiomatic, qualifier:almost always preceded by the) The only opportunity, activity, or resource available.
   • Java won't long be the only game in town. Microsoft already plans to publish a rival software, code-named Blackbird. 1995 November 12, Adam Rogers, “Now for some Hotjava”, in Newsweek, retrieved 01 Jan 2014:
   • It was the first elected position he had ever held, his single incumbency and, he had to admit, his best prospect, the only game in town. 1973, Stanley Elkin, Searches & Seizures: Three Novellas, Boston, Mass.: Nonpareil Books, David R. Godine, Publisher, →ISBN, page 265:
   • Political power, after all, is the only game in town that ensures unfettered access to the nation's oil riches. 2013 October 24, Adewale Maja-Pearce, “Nigeria's talking shop”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 29 Oct 2013:
   • […]the underlying message for Britons is relentless: raw capitalism is the only game in town, and you need to start working much harder. 2012 August 22, Andy Beckett, “Britannia Unchained: the rise of the new Tory right”, in The Guardian:
   • When exports are the only game in town, currency gyrations can be a killer. 1999 December 12, “Will the yen's surge do Japan in?”, in BusinessWeek, retrieved 01 Jan 2014:
   • He said that the increasingly fractious tone of interventions from the campaign teams over the weekend had begun to appear like “a race over who can sound more rightwing, as if that’s the only game in town”. 2022 July 25, Lord Maude, quotee, “Truss and Sunak trade blows in acrimonious first TV debate”, in The Guardian:
   • Once myth and error are dissipated, these are the only games in town. The empirical approach is the only valid way of acquiring knowledge, and this becomes evident as soon as we free ourselves from the thraldom of a false metaphysics. 2007, Charles Taylor, “What is Secularity?”, in Kevin [Jon] Vanhoozer, Martin Warner, editors, Transcending Boundaries in Philosophy and Theology: Reason, Meaning and Experience (Transcending Boundaries in Philosophy and Theology), Aldershot, Hampshire; Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate Publishing, →ISBN, page 69:
   • If you surf the Web, chances are you're using some version of either Netscape Navigator or Microsoft Internet Explorer. […] But contrary to popular belief, they aren't the only games in town. While the two combatants offer great interfaces and features, there is something to be said for taking the road less traveled. 1999 November, Rebecca Rohan, “Beyond the browser wars: Navigator and Explorer aren't the only games in town”, in Black Enterprise, volume 30, number 3, New York, N.Y.: Earl G. Graves Publishing, →ISSN, page 48:

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