Word.ws English Dictionary

one-man band

one-man band noun: a musician who plays several musical instruments at once.

one-man band: a musician who plays several musical instruments at once
Image: CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

one-man band (plural one-man bands)

  1. A musician who plays several musical instruments at once.
    1. (broadly, derogatory) A band in which the frontman does most of the work and is the spotlight or the center of attention, usually to the detriment of other band members.
  2. (broadly, idiomatic) An organisation or business that is effectively run by only one person.
    • Near-synonym: one-man army
    • The corporation he will someday inherit—growing, churning—won't work as a one-man band.2007 December 9, Peter Preston, “Challenges for the rising son”, in The Observer, UK
    Synonyms:
    one-man army

Synonyms of one-man band

Forms of one-man band

pluralone-man bands
alternative formone man band

Questions about one-man band

What does one-man band mean?
One-man band means a musician who plays several musical instruments at once.
What part of speech is one-man band?
One-man band is a noun.
What is the plural of one-man band?
The plural of one-man band is one-man bands.

Words near one-man band in the dictionary

  1. one-liner
  2. one-liners
  3. one-man
  4. one-man advantage
  5. one-man army
  6. one-man band
  7. one-man bands
  8. one-man train
  9. one-man trains
  10. one-many
  11. one-minute man

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: one-man band (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-one-man band.ogg.

Cite this entry: “one-man band.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/one-man_band. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.