sweepstakes
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sweep·stakes
(swēp′stāks′)pl.n. (used with a sing. or pl. verb)
1. A contest, often promoting a product or service, in which participants enter without paying to win usually one of several prizes. Winners are selected at random from the pool of entrants.
2.
a. A lottery in which the participants' contributions form a fund that is awarded as a prize to one or several winners.
b. An event or contest, especially a horserace, the result of which determines the winner of such a lottery.
c. The prize won in such a lottery.
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
sweep•stakes
(ˈswipˌsteɪks)also sweep′stake`,
n. (used with a sing. or pl. v.)
1. a race or other contest for which the prize consists of the stakes contributed by the various competitors.
2. the prize itself.
3. a lottery in which winning tickets are selected at random, each winning-ticket number then being matched to one of the horses nominated for or entered in a specific race, and the amounts paid the winners being determined by the finishing order of the horses that run.
4. any gambling transaction in which each participant contributes a stake, and the stakes are awarded to one or several winners.
[1485–95; orig., a person who won all the stakes in a game]
Random House Kernerman Webster's College Dictionary, © 2010 K Dictionaries Ltd. Copyright 2005, 1997, 1991 by Random House, Inc. All rights reserved.
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| Noun | 1. |  sweepstakes - a lottery in which the prize consists of the money paid by the participantsplural, plural form - the form of a word that is used to denote more than one |
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