one-up-manship

A form of one-upmanship — The art or practice of successively outdoing a competitor.

Ask AI about this wordChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

Meanings

nounone-up-manship (plural one-up-manships)

plural one-up-manships

  1. alternativeAlternative form of one-upmanship.

    In truth, he'd passed me by with a devilish grin on his face and a look of challenging one-up-manship.

    2006, Ken Ewell, Traveling with Philosophes, →ISBN, page 479
    2 more examples

    In the lounge, Lorenson was at a desk in the corner looking over his notes, and suppressing a smile at this bit of one-up-manship (or even worse, one-up-womanship) over Brewster.

    2002, Johnny John Heinz, Means to an End, →ISBN, page 94

    Ebiz.com also developed a culture of time one-up-manship‚ in which employees challenged each other to stay for longer and longer hours.

    2006, Bonnie Kaplan, Duane P. Truex, David Wastell, Information Systems Research: Relevant Theory and Informed Practice, →ISBN
Cite this entry
APA

one-up-manship. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/one-up-manship

MLA

“one-up-manship.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/one-up-manship. Accessed November 4, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “one-up-manship,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/one-up-manship.

Source: one-up-manship on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.