Warning: This page contains spoilers for the August 23-24, 2025, game of Jeopardy! — please do not scroll down if you wish to avoid being spoiled. Please note that today’s game is an encore presentation of the game that originally aired on July 15, 2024.
Here’s this weekend’s Final Jeopardy (in the category Newer Words) for August 23-24, 2025 (Season 40, Game 221):
Philosophers use it for language that accompanies an action, like “I dub thee knight”; it also means done for show or signal
(correct response beneath the contestants)
This weekend’s Jeopardy! contestants:
Brenna Sniatecki, a drama club director from Rochester, New York
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James Hayakawa, a non-profit program officer & actor originally from Davis, California
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Isaac Hirsch, a customer support team lead from Burbank, California (8-day total: $195,389)
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Andy’s Pregame Thoughts:
What is this, you ask? For decades, Jeopardy! has provided a weekend rerun for its affiliates to air over the weekend, usually a game from the previous season featuring a long-running champion. (Exactly once has a first-run game deliberately aired on the weekend; during Ken Jennings’s run, national coverage of the 2004 election caused the show to air a rerun of its 4000th episode clip show on Election Day itself, with the week’s shows pushed Wednesday-to-Saturday.)
This weekend’s rerun, which will generally air at some point on Saturday or Sunday throughout North America (to give an example, my local affiliate, CJON (NTV), airs the weekend rerun at 5:00 PM local time on Sunday afternoon), features long-running champion (and eventual Jeopardy! Masters semifinalist) Isaac Hirsch going for his ninth victory against James Hayakawa and Brenna Sniatecki.
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Correct response: What is performative?
More information about Final Jeopardy:
In a very technical sense, “I dub thee knight” or “I adjourn this meeting” is performative language, because it is language that accompanies an action. However, the word has gained a much different meaning in the 2010s and 2020s; in general, one’s detractors have co-opted the term in order to describe actions that are seen simply to increase one’s social media clout. Certainly, I have been accused of many such actions over my decade-plus time writing for The Jeopardy! Fan, including some who have been blocked from this website. (If only I could figure out how to block certain people from emailing me.)
We have many new offerings at The Jeopardy! Fan Online Store! Here are our current featured items, including our new Masters Season 3 Player List T-shirt:
Looking to find out who won Jeopardy! this weekend? Here’s the August 23-24, 2025 Jeopardy! by the numbers, along with a recap:
As it turns out, Isaac had to work for this one a bit. James got off to a hot start, picking up six correct responses to lead into the opening commercial break. While Isaac found the Daily Double shortly after the interviews and used it to build some momentum, he gave some of that back in Double Jeopardy with an incorrect Daily Double on an 18th century science clue, thinking that Alessandro Volta, noting bubbles rising from marshy water, had identified sulfur and not methane. However, neither James nor Brenna really took full advantage of the opening; James selected a pair of clues that were guaranteed not to contain the Daily Double (including, most egregiously, the $400 clue in the category where DD2 had already appeared), while Brenna only bet $3,000 of her $6,200 on an $800-level Daily Double clue very late in the round. Needless to say, this allowed Isaac to maintain his lead throughout Double Jeopardy in spite of his Daily Double miss. However, Brenna’s incorrect response to Final Jeopardy did render her Daily Double wagering error moot, as Isaac and James were the only two players correct in Final Jeopardy. Next weekend’s rerun will show Isaac going for victory #10 and superchampion status.
Scores going into Final:
Isaac $11,200
Brenna $10,000
James $4,000
Tonight’s results:
James $4,000 + $1,200 = $5,200 (What is performative? <3 F)
Brenna $10,000 – $2,000 = $8,000 (What is verbin)
Isaac $11,200 + $8,801 = $20,001 (What is performative?) (9-day total: $215,390)
Game Stats:
Isaac $13,800 Coryat, 20 correct, 5 incorrect, 33.33% in first on buzzer (19/57), 3/4 on rebound attempts (on 9 rebound opportunities)
Brenna $7,800 Coryat, 15 correct, 4 incorrect, 28.07% in first on buzzer (16/57), 2/2 on rebound attempts (on 8 rebound opportunities)
James $4,000 Coryat, 12 correct, 5 incorrect, 28.07% in first on buzzer (16/57), 1/1 on rebound attempts (on 7 rebound opportunities)
Combined Coryat Score: $25,600
Lach Trash: $15,200 (on 12 Triple Stumpers)
Coryat lost to incorrect responses (less double-correct responses): $13,200
Lead Changes: 3
Times Tied: 1
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