Etymology

va banque

Today it means: All or nothing, all in, for broke; riskily putting everything on the line to either win it all or lose it all. Full definition →

French (je) va
Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

The story

  1. French · borrowed from(je) va
  2. English todayva banque

From French (je) va (la) banque, a call used in the 18th century in games like Rouge et Noir and Faro to announce that one was betting as much money as the bank had, to either win or lose that amount.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.