Word.ws English Dictionary

not to be outdone

not to be outdone phrase: anticipating and preparing against the possibility that someone might outdo one; taking special measures to ensure one cannot be one-upped or outmaneuvered.

Phrase

not to be outdone

  1. Anticipating and preparing against the possibility that someone might outdo one; taking special measures to ensure one cannot be one-upped or outmaneuvered.

Questions about not to be outdone

What does not to be outdone mean?
Not to be outdone means anticipating and preparing against the possibility that someone might outdo one; taking special measures to ensure one cannot be one-upped or outmaneuvered.
What part of speech is not to be outdone?
Not to be outdone is a phrase.

Words near not to be outdone in the dictionary

  1. not the sharpest knife in the drawer
  2. not the sharpest knives in the drawer
  3. not the sharpest pencil in the box
  4. not the sharpest tool in the box
  5. not the sharpest tool in the shed
  6. not to be outdone
  7. not to brag
  8. not to mention
  9. not to put a tooth in it
  10. not to put too fine a point on it
  11. not to put too fine a word on it

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: not to be outdone (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: “not to be outdone.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/not_to_be_outdone. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.