Word.ws English Dictionary

going one better

going one better is the present participle and gerund of go one better.

Meaning of go one better

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

Questions about going one better

What is going one better the present participle and gerund of?
Going one better is the present participle and gerund of go one better.

Words near going one better in the dictionary

  1. going on the mitch
  2. going on the scout
  3. going on vacation
  4. going once, going twice
  5. going once, going twice, sold
  6. going one better
  7. going one's own way
  8. going one's ways
  9. going or blowing
  10. going out
  11. going out of one's way

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: going one better (page history and authors); 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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