Word.ws English Dictionary

one-on-one

one-on-one adjective: involving direct communication or competition between two people.

Adjective

one-on-one (not comparable)

  1. (Australia, Canada, US) Involving direct communication or competition between two people.
    • Such one-on-one “swearing contests” are routinely decided in favor of law enforcement officers, but in this case the district court sided with the accused bank robber.1999, United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on the Judiciary. Subcommittee on Criminal Justice Oversight, The Clinton Justice Department's Refusal to Enforce the Law on Voluntary Confessions...
  2. Involving one attacker and one defender.
    • After several near misses, Van Persie finally reached three figures by turning in Walcott's cross before Jaaskelainen saved from Walcott when one-on-one.2011 September 24, David Ornstein, “Arsenal 3 - 0 Bolton”, in BBC Sport
    • Swedish striker Isak was also foiled by Ortega in a one-on-one opportunity shortly before half-time. If converted, that may have put the game beyond City's reach.2024 January 13, Callum Matthews, “Newcastle United 2-3 Manchester City”, in BBC Sport
  3. bijective or injective

Adverb

one-on-one (not comparable)

  1. In a one-on-one manner.
    • He was willing to go one-on-one with the District Attorney himself.

Noun

one-on-one (countable and uncountable, plural one-on-ones)

  1. A contest involving only one player on each side, especially of an activity often involving teams.
    • Why don't we play a little one-on-one until the others show up.
    Synonyms:
    triple O

Synonyms of one-on-one

Forms of one-on-one

pluralone-on-ones

Questions about one-on-one

What does one-on-one mean?
One-on-one means involving direct communication or competition between two people.
What part of speech is one-on-one?
One-on-one can be an adjective, an adverb or a noun.

Words near one-on-one in the dictionary

  1. one-of-a-kind
  2. one-of-a-kinds
  3. one-off
  4. one-offs
  5. one-ofs
  6. one-on-one
  7. one-on-ones
  8. one-one
  9. one-outer
  10. one-outers
  11. one-pager

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: one-on-one (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-us-one-on-one.oga.

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