Word.ws English Dictionary

second-best

second-best is the alternative spelling of second best.

Meaning of second best

Adjective

second best (not comparable)

  1. Inferior to the best (but better than other alternatives).
    • I had to make do with a second-best alternative.
  2. Characterized by one or more optimality conditions not being satisfiable.

See all 4 meanings of second best

Questions about second-best

What is second-best the alternative spelling of?
Second-best is the alternative spelling of second best.

Words near second-best in the dictionary

  1. second yellow cards
  2. second-act
  3. second-acted
  4. second-acting
  5. second-acts
  6. second-best
  7. second-campism
  8. second-class
  9. second-class citizen
  10. second-class citizens
  11. second-class continuation

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: second-best (page history and authors); second best (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: “second-best.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/second-best. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.