Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • transitive verb To keep one step ahead of (a competitor or opponent, for example).

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Ahead of a friend or competitor in some competitive activity.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb idiomatic To outdo, to do something slightly better than a competitor's prior effort.
  • noun video games An additional life or an object that increases the player's number of chances or "lives" by one.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • Later, on "The Colbert Report," Colbert re-confirmed the "Daily Show" announcement, and even tried to one-up Oprah by giving all of his audience members tickets to the rally (albeit on a Chinatown bus.)

    Oprah Endorses 'Rally To Restore Sanity And/Or Fear' (VIDEO) The Huffington Post News Team 2010

  • You live in a neighborhood consisting of duplexes, but they are one-up/one-down instead of side-by-side.

    Wisconsin Man Sues Police After Open-Carry Arrest 2010

  • Later, on "The Colbert Report," Colbert re-confirmed the "Daily Show" announcement, and even tried to one-up Oprah by giving all of his audience members tickets to the rally (albeit on a Chinatown bus.)

    Oprah Endorses 'Rally To Restore Sanity And/Or Fear' (VIDEO) The Huffington Post News Team 2010

  • Later, on "The Colbert Report," Colbert re-confirmed the "Daily Show" announcement, and even tried to one-up Oprah by giving all of his audience members tickets to the rally (albeit on a Chinatown bus.)

    Oprah Endorses 'Rally To Restore Sanity And/Or Fear' (VIDEO) The Huffington Post News Team 2010

  • Later, on "The Colbert Report," Colbert re-confirmed the "Daily Show" announcement, and even tried to one-up Oprah by giving all of his audience members tickets to the rally (albeit on a Chinatown bus.)

    Oprah Endorses 'Rally To Restore Sanity And/Or Fear' (VIDEO) The Huffington Post News Team 2010

  • What was to follow was picture after picture trying to one-up the last, holding on desperately to their action formula whilst trying to kick up the water-cooler buzz with the newest developments in CGI.

    Top 10 Things Movies Taught Us In the 1990s » Scene-Stealers 2010

  • Comcast executives say the purpose of the switch is to deliver live TV service to any device that can connect to the Internet, as they attempt to one-up online video services that offer a relatively limited amount of content on demand, not live.

    Comcast Tests Tech Overhaul Jessica E. Vascellaro 2011

  • And honestly, that portion of our program wasn't just informative, it may also be your secret weapon next Halloween when ya'll want to one-up that dude who always shows up at the party in some killer costume.

    Watercooler: Face Off is On! 2011

  • At dinner parties during the rest of the year, they vie to one-up each other with stories of malaria, harrowing airplane flights and close calls with venomous snakes in what most of their compatriots would regard as Third World hell-holes.

    For Italians, Summer Starts at the Beach Francis X. Rocca in Rome 2011

  • Later, on "The Colbert Report," Colbert re-confirmed the "Daily Show" announcement, and even tried to one-up Oprah by giving all of his audience members tickets to the rally (albeit on a Chinatown bus.)

    Oprah Endorses 'Rally To Restore Sanity And/Or Fear' (VIDEO) The Huffington Post News Team 2010

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