plus one
plus one noun: a friend or partner whom one brings along to an event; a guest of a guest.
Noun
plus one (plural plus ones)
- A friend or partner whom one brings along to an event; a guest of a guest.
- I'm on the guestlist baby / Be my plus one2004, “Plus One”, in Gives It To Ya. Twice, performed by Coyote Shivers
- If the invitation doesn't say Plus One, then the guest or their representative or the guest pretending to be their own representative if they don't have one will call up to check if they can bring a Plus One. Basically, a Plus One is a guest's guest.2005, Claire Fordham, Plus One: A Year in the Life of a Hollywood Nobody, →ISBN, page 13
Examples of plus one in a sentence
- No, you ain't worth guest list / Plus one of all them girls you kiss2006, Amy Winehouse, “Me & Mr Jones”, in Back to Black:
- Keir [Starmer] was there purely as The Donald’s plus one.2025 July 28, John Crace, “Sidekick Starmer can’t get a word in as The Donald dominates world’s most one-sided double act”, in The...
Synonyms of plus one
Forms of plus one
| plural | plus ones |
|---|---|
| alternative form | +1 |
| alternative form | plus-one |
Origin of plus one
From guest lists reading “John Doe + 1” meaning “John Doe plus one (unspecified) guest”. Later generalized to invitations, particularly as an alternative to explicitly inviting both members of a couple: the invitee is welcome to bring a guest, be it a spouse, companion, date, friend, etc.
Questions about plus one
- What does plus one mean?
- Plus one means a friend or partner whom one brings along to an event; a guest of a guest.
- How do you use plus one in a sentence?
- No, you ain't worth guest list / Plus one of all them girls you kiss
- What part of speech is plus one?
- Plus one is a noun.
- What is the plural of plus one?
- The plural of plus one is plus ones.
Words near plus one in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: plus 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:
Cite this entry: “plus one.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/plus_one. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.