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Get the better of   /gɛt ðə bˈɛtər əv/   Listen
verb
Get  v. t.  (past got, obs. gat; past part. got or gotten; pres. part. getting)  
1.
To procure; to obtain; to gain possession of; to acquire; to earn; to obtain as a price or reward; to come by; to win, by almost any means; as, to get favor by kindness; to get wealth by industry and economy; to get land by purchase, etc.
2.
Hence, with have and had, to come into or be in possession of; to have. "Thou hast got the face of man."
3.
To beget; to procreate; to generate. "I had rather to adopt a child than get it."
4.
To obtain mental possession of; to learn; to commit to memory; to memorize; as to get a lesson; also with out; as, to get out one's Greek lesson. "It being harder with him to get one sermon by heart, than to pen twenty."
5.
To prevail on; to induce; to persuade. "Get him to say his prayers."
6.
To procure to be, or to cause to be in any state or condition; with a following participle. "Those things I bid you do; get them dispatched."
7.
To betake; to remove; in a reflexive use. "Get thee out from this land." "He... got himself... to the strong town of Mega." Note: Get, as a transitive verb, is combined with adverbs implying motion, to express the causing to, or the effecting in, the object of the verb, of the kind of motion indicated by the preposition; thus, to get in, to cause to enter, to bring under shelter; as, to get in the hay; to get out, to make come forth, to extract; to get off, to take off, to remove; to get together, to cause to come together, to collect.
To get by heart, to commit to memory.
To get the better of, To get the best of, to obtain an advantage over; to surpass; to subdue.
To get up, to cause to be established or to exit; to prepare; to arrange; to construct; to invent; as, to get up a celebration, a machine, a book, an agitation.
Synonyms: To obtain; gain; win; acquire. See Obtain.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Get the better of" Quotes from Famous Books



... shook their heads and simply did not believe. "We can make all the guns and the shells that are wanted without giving up our rules. We value our sons' lives as much as you do. We love our country as much as you do. The capitalists are using a plea of patriotism to get the better of us." It was a pitiful deadlock—honest for the most part; yet it was a deadlock which, as Dawson said, brought very near the day when English artillery would be firing shotted guns ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone

... up and shook himself, and stalked about the garden always keeping within a few yards of his sister's chair and carried on a strong battle within his breast, struggling to get the better of the weakness which his love produced, though resolved that the love itself ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope

... the situation. An enormous pride over their departed townsman became evident. They paraded him, flaunting him like a banner in the eyes of the new man. "David is awful smart," they said; "there won't nobody get the better of him in the city if he has lived in Townsend Centre all his life. He's got his eyes open. Know what he paid for his house in Boston? Well, sir, that house cost twenty-five thousand dollars, and David he bought it for five. ...
— The Wind in the Rose-bush and Other Stories of the Supernatural • Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman

... too harshly, Leoh warned himself. You just might be letting your frustrations with the dueling machine get the better of ...
— The Dueling Machine • Benjamin William Bova

... confident about myself. No doubt I could protect her easily against five or six great brawny hulking porters ... armed with coal-hammers ... but I am seriously doubtful whether a dozen or so, aided with a little luck, mightn't get the better of me. ...
— Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne


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