Definition of "one-upmanship" []

• Informal The art of outdoing or showing up a rival or competitor, as in exploits, privileges, or honors. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Granted, MC is now a classic, but it's hardly one-upmanship if he has waited until the novel not only won the Booker, the Booker of Bookers 25, and the Booker of Bookers AGAIN to read it, now is it?!"
• "Paired violinists Minna Kangas and Tuomo Suni took up the singer's motifs and traded them back and forth, often engaged in smiling one-upmanship while embellishing their lines."
• "For the universities involved, these partnerships are not rooted in cloud one-upmanship, but in invaluable experience."