Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun The art of outdoing or showing up a rival or competitor, as in exploits, privileges, or honors.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun The attitude or practice of trying to keep one step ahead of a friend or competitor; vigorous competitiveness.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun idiomatic The art or practice of successively
outdoing a competitor. - noun idiomatic A succession of instances of outdoing a competitor.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun the practice of keeping one jump ahead of a friend or competitor
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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All you hear from that side in these posts is a lot of immature high school football game one-upmanship rhetoric.
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What is the deal with this one-upmanship (sp) thing going on between Dems and Reps?
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Congressional Republicans should not try to outdo Mr. Obama in a game of unprincipled one-upmanship.
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All you hear from that side is a lot of immature high school football game one-upmanship rhetoric. will
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Offense by proxy is a perverse form of holier-than-thou one-upmanship.
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Don't get me wrong, I love 'em to death, but the way they seem capable of turning any situation into a game of one-upmanship -- even with their closest buddies -- can be a pretty awesome spectacle.
Sundance: Bromance Blossoms In ‘Humpday’ — Watch An Exclusive Clip! » MTV Movies Blog
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Paired violinists Minna Kangas and Tuomo Suni took up the singer's motifs and traded them back and forth, often engaged in smiling one-upmanship while embellishing their lines.
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Granted, MC is now a classic, but it's hardly one-upmanship if he has waited until the novel not only won the Booker, the Booker of Bookers 25, and the Booker of Bookers AGAIN to read it, now is it?!
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For the universities involved, these partnerships are not rooted in cloud one-upmanship, but in invaluable experience.
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Stephen Potter, a British humorist who has undeservedly faded into obscurity, is the father of "one-upmanship," a strategem for besting an opponent—somewhat unfairly—without actually cheating.
johnmperry commented on the word one-upmanship
Title of 1952 book by Stephen Potter (1900-1969)
July 24, 2008
dontcry commented on the word one-upmanship
I wrote an essay in college about one-upmanship. One of my favorite examples of it is if someone cuts you off in traffic and bothers to look for your reaction, give them a polite wave, or a thumbs up and a cheery smile. You're up!
July 24, 2008