one-upmanship
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
That kind of provocative behavior will lead to years, even a lifetime, of one-upmanship, backbiting and behind-the-scenes maneuvers.
From MarketWatch • Nov. 3, 2025
The resulting game of financial one-upmanship has tied the fates of the world’s biggest semiconductor and cloud companies—and vast swaths of the U.S. economy—to OpenAI, essentially making it too big to fail.
From The Wall Street Journal • Oct. 21, 2025
The skyscape of this city is peppered with examples of architectural “I’ll go higher still” one-upmanship.
From BBC • Sep. 26, 2024
Also underway are the campaign intel-gathering, one-upmanship and trash talk.
From Seattle Times • May 17, 2024
He read and reread the works of Stephen Potter—the English writer who coined the terms one-upmanship and gamesmanship—not as social satire but as a manual of practical stratagems.
From "Into the Wild" by Jon Krakauer
