tiebreaker

tie·break·er | \ ˈtī-ˌbrā-kər

How to pronounce tiebreaker (audio)

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Definition of tiebreaker

: an additional contest or period of play used to select a winner when a competition ends in a tie

Examples of tiebreaker in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web The 18-16 tiebreaker between Bjorn Borg and John McEnroe in 1980. — Howard Fendrich, SFChronicle.com, "As Wimbledon is missed, Chris Evert recalls ups and downs of long rivalry with Navratilova," 4 July 2020 That may include a provision for tie games in the event the extra-innings tiebreaker fails to break an impasse quickly. — Gabe Lacques, USA TODAY, "MLB 2020: When, where and how? Answering your burning questions for the (possible) season," 23 June 2020 When Silver pressed pause on the season in March, Phoenix was six games out of the eighth and final playoff spot in the Western Conference held by Memphis, which owned the tiebreaker against them. — Duane Rankin, azcentral, "Phoenix Suns part of approved 22-team NBA return format," 4 June 2020 Since regular season results will only be used in the case of a tiebreaker in the round robin, the Stars can finish anywhere from first to fourth in the West. — Matthew Defranks, Dallas News, "Stars playoff preview: How does Dallas stack up against its round robin opponents?," 27 May 2020 If Tulsa wins and Houston wins, the Bearcats would be the No. 3, as the Cougars eventually win out in a layer of tiebreakers that would eventually be decided by the Bearcats' early January loss at Tulane. — Fletcher Page, Cincinnati.com, "Trevon Scott's late basket pushes Cincinnati basketball past Temple," 8 Mar. 2020 Most of the tiebreakers favor Oregon getting the No. — oregonlive, "Oregon’s 69-54 Civil War men’s basketball win means 2 days off and a big shot at the Pac-12 regular season championship," 27 Feb. 2020 If that happened, they could be passed by the Patriots or end up on the wrong side of the head-to-head tiebreaker with the Chiefs, but there are 31 teams in the NFL who would gladly trade places with them right now. — Peter Schmuck, baltimoresun.com, "The five games in Week 14 that mattered to Ravens: AFC playoff picture coming into focus," 9 Dec. 2019 Due to the success and interest of the playoff tiebreaker, the NFL created its first league championship game in 1933 after dividing its clubs into two five-team divisions. — Dennis Waszak Jr., chicagotribune.com, "League’s 1st championship game, draft highlight NFL in 1930s," 29 Sep. 2019

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'tiebreaker.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

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Last Updated

9 Jul 2020

Cite this Entry

“Tiebreaker.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tiebreaker. Accessed 4 Aug. 2020.

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