Word.ws English Dictionary

one on one

one on one is the alternative form of one-on-one.

Meaning of one-on-one

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
  3. bijective or injective

See all 5 meanings of one-on-one

Forms of one on one

pluralone on ones

Questions about one on one

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

Words near one on one in the dictionary

  1. one of these odd-come-shortlies
  2. one of those days
  3. one of those things
  4. one of us
  5. one off the wrist
  6. one on one
  7. one or two
  8. one over the eight
  9. one pair
  10. one pairs
  11. one percenter

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: one on one (page history and authors); 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.

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