toss-up

See also: tossup and toss up

English

Alternative forms

• tossup, toss up

Pronunciation

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Noun

toss-up (plural toss-ups)

1. (idiomatic) A decision in which neither choice is clearly favorable or unfavorable, or for which the outcome does not matter.

   It's really a toss-up between the red skirt with blue stripes and the blue skirt with red stripes. They both look good and fit well.

2. Either of two outcomes that are equally likely.
   • 2013, Tom Shone, Oscar nominations pull a surprise by showing some taste – but will it last? (in The Guardian, 11 January 2013)[1]

     No longer is the best picture going to be a toss-up between that troika of national-historical heavies: Argo, Lincoln and Zero Dark Thirty. Instead, a warm welcome back for Life of Pi, widely dismissed by many as "this year's Hugo" but this column's dark-horse pick from October.

3. The toss of a coin used to decide some issue.

Translations

a decision in which neither choice is clearly favorable or unfavorable, or for which the outcome does not matter

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• Hungarian: egyre megy, mindegy (hu)

either of two outcomes that are equally likely

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• Hungarian: kétesélyes, kérdéses (hu)
• Polish: no equivalent term in Polish, but see na dwoje babka wróżyła (pl)

the toss of a coin used to decide some issue

• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Bulgarian: жребий (bg) m (žrebij)
• Hungarian: pénzfeldobás

Anagrams

• spouts, stoups, uptoss