beat someone at their own game
beat someone at their own game verb: to successfully use someone's methods and strategies against them.
Verb
beat someone at their own game (third-person singular simple present beats someone at their own game, present participle beating someone at their own game, simple past beat someone at their own game, past participle beaten someone at their own game or (colloquial) beat someone at their own game)
- To successfully use someone's methods and strategies against them.
Forms of beat someone at their own game
| third-person singular present | beats someone at their own game |
|---|---|
| present participle | beating someone at their own game |
| past | beat someone at their own game |
| past participle | beaten someone at their own game |
| alternative UK | play someone at their own game |
| past participle (colloquial) | beat someone at their own game |
Questions about beat someone at their own game
- What does beat someone at their own game mean?
- Beat someone at their own game means to successfully use someone's methods and strategies against them.
- What part of speech is beat someone at their own game?
- Beat someone at their own game is a verb.
- What is the past tense of beat someone at their own game?
- The past tense of beat someone at their own game is beat someone at their own game.
Words near beat someone at their own game in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: beat someone at their own game (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.
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Cite this entry: “beat someone at their own game.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/beat_someone_at_their_own_game. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
