Definition of "all-or-nothing" [all-or-nothing]

• Involving either complete success or failure, with no intermediate result: "Downhill races are all-or-nothing events, decided on the basis of one run” ( Neil Amdur). (adjective)
• Refusing to accept less than all demands; uncompromising: an all-or-nothing negotiating position. (adjective)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "For another, it also does something even more crucial to your psychological success: It stops you from focusing on some arbitrary number that promotes the idea of all-or-nothing success or failure."
• "Due to the polarising nature of the issue and the dependence on case law, it could easily be an all-or-nothing situation."
• "Too often, political decisions in the Muslim majority world have become an all-or-nothing, zero-sum game."