Word.ws English Dictionary

second bests

second bests is the plural of second best.

Meaning of second best

Noun

second best (plural second bests)

  1. Something (or someone) that is inferior to the best (but better than other alternatives).
    • And so makeshift and second-best have continued.1956, Anthony Burgess, Time for a Tiger (The Malayan Trilogy), published 1972, page 38
  2. A situation where one or more optimality conditions cannot be satisfied.

See all 4 meanings of second best

Questions about second bests

What is second bests the plural of?
Second bests is the plural of second best.

Words near second bests in the dictionary

  1. second base
  2. second baseman
  3. second basemen
  4. second bases
  5. second best
  6. second bests
  7. second brain
  8. second brains
  9. second breakfast
  10. second breakfasts
  11. second chance

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: second bests (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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