Word.ws English Dictionary

one-up

one-up is the alternative form of one up.

Meaning of one up

Verb

one up (third-person singular simple present one ups, present participle one upping, simple past and past participle one upped)

  1. (idiomatic) To outdo, to perform something slightly better than a competitor's prior effort.
    • Every year the neighbors try to one-up each other with their holiday lights.

See all 2 meanings of one up

Forms of one-up

Verb
third-person singular presentone-ups
present participleone-upping
past participleone-upped
pastone-upped
Noun
pluralone-ups

Words formed from one-up

Questions about one-up

What is one-up the alternative form of?
One-up is the alternative form of one up.

Words near one-up in the dictionary

  1. one-two
  2. one-two punch
  3. one-two punches
  4. one-two-three
  5. one-twos
  6. one-up
  7. one-up-manship
  8. one-up-manships
  9. one-up-one-down
  10. one-up-one-downs
  11. one-up-womanship

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: one-up (page history and authors); one up (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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Cite this entry: “one-up.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/one-up. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.