Word OriginOld English sacu ‘contention, crime’, of Germanic origin; related to Dutch zaak and German Sache, from a base meaning ‘affair, legal action, thing’. The phrase for the sake of may be from Old Norse.
Idioms
See sake in the Oxford Advanced American DictionarySee sake in the Oxford Learner's Dictionary of Academic Englishfor Christ’s, God’s, goodness’, heaven’s, pity’s, etc. sake
- used to emphasize that it is important to do something or when you are annoyed about something
- Do be careful, for goodness' sake.
- Oh, for heaven's sake!
- For pity's sake, help me!
Definitions on the go
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for old times’ sake
- if you do something for old times’ sake, you do it because it is connected with something good that happened to you in the past
for something’s sake
- because of the interest or value something has, not because of the advantages it may bring
- I believe in education for its own sake.
- art for art’s sake
for the sake of somebody/something | for somebody’s/something’s sake
- in order to help somebody/something or because you like somebody/something
- They stayed together for the sake of the children.
- You can do it. Please, for my sake.
- I hope you're right, for all our sakes (= because this is important for all of us).
for the sake of something
- in order to get or keep something
- The translation sacrifices naturalness for the sake of accuracy.
- She gave up smoking for the sake of her health.
- Let's suppose, for the sake of argument (= in order to have a discussion), that interest rates went up by 2 per cent.
(just) for the sake of it
- for no particular reason
- Don't get married just for the sake of it.
Check pronunciation:
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