Words evolve in their usage and meaning over time, but few words in the business language have changed as much as the term "win-win." Once confined to the literature on conflict management, the term has been co-opted in the trade press and often used incorrectly in place of the term "compromise." This etymological study traces the lineage of the term from its appearance in the academic literature in the 1970s to its proliferation in the trade press beginning in the early 1980s. Two interpretative errors are described and the effects of these errors on the meaning of the term are detailed.