Word.ws English Dictionary

go one better

go one better verb: to take a bet and add another to it.

Verb

go one better (third-person singular simple present goes one better, present participle going one better, simple past went one better, past participle gone one better)

  1. To take a bet and add another to it.
  2. To outdo somebody; to do something that surpasses what came before.
    • Arsenal, who have finished second for the past three seasons, added Spain international Martin Zubimendi to their midfield for £60m this summer as they look to go one better and win the title.2025 October 21, Alex Howell, “The evolution of Rice - how midfielder became Arsenal's all-rounder”, in BBC Sport

Forms of go one better

third-person singular presentgoes one better
present participlegoing one better
pastwent one better
past participlegone one better

Questions about go one better

What does go one better mean?
Go one better means to take a bet and add another to it.
What part of speech is go one better?
Go one better is a verb.
What is the past tense of go one better?
The past tense of go one better is went one better.

Words near go one better in the dictionary

  1. go on the mitch
  2. go on the scout
  3. go on then
  4. go on vacation
  5. go on with you
  6. go one better
  7. go one's own way
  8. go one's way
  9. go one's ways
  10. go or blow
  11. go order

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: go one better (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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