one after another
17
2.3
- idiom
:
uno tras otro
- The fireworks went off one after another, lighting up the night sky.
- keep coming one after another
- go one after another
- Just one after another
Not just her, by the way, all of them, one after another, talk, talk, talk.
- Not just her, by the way, all of them, one after another, talk, talk, talk.
- And he goes through this long list, boom, boom, boom, one after another after another after another.
- You know, they all, they all fell one after another, not just chess with deep blue, but Chequers, backgammon, Othello.
- So what is it that we are, let's say, thinking that life and death is something which happens chronologically one after another?
- Even though they're like cranking, winning launches one after another, but the whole team, the whole vibe, the positive sentiment was low.
- It was like there, there were a lot of moments, a lot of tears, a lot of hardship, a lot of hard decisions just one after another.
- And these building blocks are strong one after another, like beads on a string to form a long, another long string like molecule.
- And he said, one after another, every time we do this, the title that comes back the highest is the Heidi Fleiss story.
Examples
-
The injured just keep coming here one after another.
-
To each and all, one after another, I draw near.
-
Not just her, by the way, all of them, one after another, talk, talk, talk.
-
What was the matter with them all, turning him down one after another?
Fiction book (1995) -
The lights in the windows of the gray block go out one after another.
Fiction book (1998) -
Instead, one after another, these people lost jobs, opportunities and careers.
-
When it is time to leave, we bend down one after another and file out of the hut.
Fiction book (1998) -
As time went by, we left, one after another, to serve different emperors.
Fiction book (1995) -
Pokemon are arriving at the centre one after another, in extreme distress.
-
A series of sepia images of anti-war protests from the mid-sixties appear one after another on the screen.
Fiction book (1998)
Synonyms
186
1.4
Things happen one after another, not at the same time
45
3.7
Happening one after another with no break between them
17
2.0
With no pause between actions or events
9
4.1
Happening one after another without a break
9
4.5
Things happen one after the other in a fixed order
3
4.4
One thing happens after another
Antonyms
How Sequential
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'happening or appearing in succession' is directly and transparently derived from combining 'one' (a single item) with 'after' (following in order) and 'another' (a subsequent item): the phrase literally describes items following each other. This sequential composition is a common, regular pattern across languages, so a B1 learner who knows the constituent words would readily infer the MWE meaning.
Etymology
One after another shows a simple picture: one person comes after another, like people walking through a door or dominoes falling. That's why it means 'happening in a row', with each thing following the previous.