Word.ws English Dictionary

get the better of

get the better of verb: to overwhelm or overcome.

Verb

get the better of (third-person singular simple present gets the better of, present participle getting the better of, simple past got the better of, past participle (UK) got the better of or (US) gotten the better of)

  1. (idiomatic, transitive) To overwhelm or overcome.
    • Adam said, "My temper got the better of me, and I said things as wasn't true."1859, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], chapter 28, in Adam Bede […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC
    • Though this sort of thing went on every other night or very near it still Stephen's feelings got the better of him in a sense though he knew that Corley's brandnew rigmarole on a par with the others was hardly deserving of much credence.1922 February 2, James Joyce, “[16]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company […], →OCLC
    Synonyms:
    defeat, overpower, better
  2. (idiomatic, transitive) To trick or con.
    • I won't let you get the best of me
      How'd my heart become my enemy?
      I won't let you get the best of me
      How'd my heart become my enemy?2015 May 12, Rachel Platten, Dave Bassett, Brian West, “Beating Me Up”, in Fight Song, performed by Rachel Platten
  3. (idiomatic, transitive) To gain an advantage over or regarding.
    • He got the better of him early in the match, but ended up losing.
    • So long as the intellectual gets the better of the general argument, the most valid objections of the specific issue will be brushed aside.1949, F. A. Hayek, “The Intellectuals and Socialism”, in University of Chicago Law Review, volume 16, number 3, Chicago: University of Chicago, →DOI, page 426

get the better of meaning in Tamil

get the better of in Tamil

செறு

Synonyms of get the better of

Forms of get the better of

third-person singular presentgets the better of
present participlegetting the better of
pastgot the better of
past participle UKgot the better of
past participle USgotten the better of
alternative formget the best of

Questions about get the better of

What does get the better of mean?
Get the better of means to overwhelm or overcome.
What is get the better of in Tamil?
Get the better of in Tamil is செறு. See Get the better of meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is get the better of?
Get the better of is a verb.
What is the past tense of get the better of?
The past tense of get the better of is got the better of.

Words near get the better of in the dictionary

  1. get sturdy
  2. get taken in
  3. get the ball rolling
  4. get the band back together
  5. get the best of
  6. get the better of
  7. get the bird
  8. get the boot
  9. get the bulge on
  10. get the bullet
  11. get the chop

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: get the better of (page history and authors); get the better of (Tamil Wiktionary) (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:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-get the better of.ogg.

Cite this entry: “get the better of.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/get_the_better_of. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.