ONE BY ONE

Pronunciation (US):

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does one by one mean? 

• ONE BY ONE (adverb)
  The adverb ONE BY ONE has 3 senses:

1. in succession

2. one piece at a time

3. apart from others

  Familiarity information: ONE BY ONE used as an adverb is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• ONE BY ONE (adverb)

Sense 1

Meaning:

In succession

Synonyms:

one at a time; one by one

Context example:

the prisoners came out one by one

Sense 2

Meaning:

One piece at a time

Synonyms:

by the piece; one by one

Context example:

she sold the plates by the piece

Sense 3

Meaning:

Apart from others

Synonyms:

individually; on an individual basis; one by one; separately; severally; singly

Context example:

the fine points are treated singly

 Context examples 

They met him with the mass-formation, otherwise he would have killed them, one by one, in a night.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

Then suddenly he tore up his music sheets, one by one, and as the last fluttered out of his hand, he said soberly to himself...

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

The Captain would have read it twenty thousand times, if twenty thousand people would have heard him, one by one.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

“Show them in one by one,” said Holmes.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

He took me by the hand and drew me in: "See!" he said, "here you will be in shelter; and if the wolves do come I can meet them one by one."

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

I felt as if he had placed carefully, one by one, in my view those instruments which were to be afterwards used in putting me to a slow and cruel death.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

One by one the poor devils have to jump, and the game is to see whether they are merely dashed to pieces or whether they get skewered on the canes.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

And one by one, encouraged by vociferous applause, speaking with fire and enthusiasm and excited gestures, they replied to the attack.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Sherlock Holmes picked them up one by one, and laid them along the edge of the table.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Currently, high-speed cameras capture images one by one in a sequence.

(World's Fastest Film Camera, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)