1-up
/ˈwʌn ʌp/UK/wɒn ʌp/
1-up noun: an item that grants the player an extra life in the game, staving off game over by one more try.
Noun
1-up (plural 1-ups)
- An item that grants the player an extra life in the game, staving off game over by one more try.
- In a game with multiple players, an indicator or identifier of player 1.
- Before any player registers points, the PAC-MAN scoring table displays in white "1 UP" and "2 UP" where the scores will appear.1982, Harlington Wood, Jr., Atari v. North American Philips Consumer Electronics Corp., 672 F.2d 607, n. 2 (7th Cir. 1982)
- This is the players turn (1-up or 2-up)1998, Sega Genesis, Frogger 1998 - Walkthrough
Forms of 1-up
| plural | 1-ups |
|---|---|
| alternative form | one-up |
Origin of 1-up
"Extra life" sense borrowed from Japanese 1UP(ワンアップ) (wan'appu) and perhaps popularized by Super Mario Bros. (1985); but the term existed earlier in multi-player pinball and other arcade games in the 1960s, where "1Up" and "2Up" were used as flashing notifications to indicate who would play next (or who was "up" next in order). See https://www.inverse.com/gaming/1up-meaning-origin-definition-gaming.
Words formed from 1-up
Questions about 1-up
- What does 1-up mean?
- 1-up means an item that grants the player an extra life in the game, staving off game over by one more try.
- What part of speech is 1-up?
- 1-up is a noun.
- How do you pronounce 1-up?
- 1-up is pronounced /ˈwʌn ʌp/.
- What is the plural of 1-up?
- The plural of 1-up is 1-ups.
Words near 1-up in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: 1-up (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Cite this entry: “1-up.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/1-up. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.