Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. Informal To keep one step ahead of (a competitor or opponent, for example).
Wiktionary
- v. idiomatic To outdo, to do something slightly better than a competitor's prior effort.
- n. video games An additional life or an object that increases the player's number of chances or "lives" by one.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Ahead of a friend or competitor in some competitive activity.
Examples
“And honestly, that portion of our program wasn't just informative, it may also be your secret weapon next Halloween when ya'll want to one-up that dude who always shows up at the party in some killer costume.”
“Comcast executives say the purpose of the switch is to deliver live TV service to any device that can connect to the Internet, as they attempt to one-up online video services that offer a relatively limited amount of content on demand, not live.”
“At dinner parties during the rest of the year, they vie to one-up each other with stories of malaria, harrowing airplane flights and close calls with venomous snakes in what most of their compatriots would regard as Third World hell-holes.”
The Wall Street Journal: For Italians, Summer Starts at the Beach
“What was to follow was picture after picture trying to one-up the last, holding on desperately to their action formula whilst trying to kick up the water-cooler buzz with the newest developments in CGI.”
Top 10 Things Movies Taught Us In the 1990s » Scene-Stealers
“Later, on "The Colbert Report," Colbert re-confirmed the "Daily Show" announcement, and even tried to one-up Oprah by giving all of his audience members tickets to the rally (albeit on a Chinatown bus.)”
The Huffington Post: Oprah Endorses 'Rally To Restore Sanity And/Or Fear' (VIDEO)
“You live in a neighborhood consisting of duplexes, but they are one-up/one-down instead of side-by-side.”
“Social – knowing one or two foreign languages will definitely give you that ‘one-up’ in society.”
“Apparently improvised as they toured the countryside, "The Trip" features the pair of British funnymen trying to one-up each other, whether it's in dissecting both the lyrics and Swedish-inflected English of ABBA's The Winner Takes It All, topping each other with impressions of various James Bonds or offering dueling versions of their Michael Caine impressions.”
The Huffington Post: Marshall Fine: HuffPost Review: The Trip
“Lots of rightie, wingnut, teabagging nutjobs are going to one-up Joseph Stack now.”
“In a year when the president and the GOP are trying to one-up each other on who can cut deficits the fastest, just guess which three topics are almost never addressed as budget-busters in the media.”
Lists
‘one-up’ hasn't been added to any lists yet.
Tweets
Looking for tweets for one-up.
Comments
No comments yet...
Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.