How to Use outcompete in a Sentence

outcompete

verb
  • This could be due to its ability to outcompete other plants or the attraction of bees near areas where children and pets play.
    — Sj McShane, Martha Stewart, 10 June 2026
  • Reseed the lawn afterwards to give the grass a chance to outcompete creeping Charlie.
    — Brandee Gruener, Southern Living, 12 Apr. 2026
  • Yes, but they get outplayed for those reasons, just as, in Game 3, those same lines and same groups outcompeted the other guys.
    — Michael Russo, New York Times, 12 May 2026
  • By the time warm-season grasses germinate in late spring, annual grassy weeds have taken hold and outcompete the young seedlings.
    — Megan Hughes, Better Homes & Gardens, 23 Nov. 2025
  • Today, in much of the world, renewable energy outcompetes fossil fuels on cost alone.
    — Sir David King, Time, 15 Dec. 2025
  • Smaller and more agile, great whites may have been outcompeting megalodon for prey before that prey grew large enough to be worth a megalodon’s energy.
    — Scott Travers, Forbes.com, 20 June 2026
  • And that can lead to other plants - with slimmer genetic loads - to outcompete them, leading to the polyploid plant's extinction.
    — Ari Daniel, NPR, 19 May 2026
  • In some areas where blue cats have been introduced, the bigger blues are outcompeting the native channel cats in the main waterways.
    — Ken Perrotte, Outdoor Life, 4 June 2026
  • Bryan said neighboring districts outcompete Natomas on benefits and wages.
    — Emma Hall, Sacbee.com, 10 Mar. 2026
  • The Senators outcompeted the Sharks for most of the final two periods.
    — Curtis Pashelka, Mercury News, 27 Nov. 2025
  • On top of that, beneficial fungi can outcompete damaging fungi in the soil and make plants more disease-resistant.
    — Lauren Landers, The Spruce, 16 June 2026
  • Autumn olive outcompetes and displaces native plants by shading them and changing the surrounding soil chemistry—a process called allelopathy.
    — Sj McShane, Martha Stewart, 5 Apr. 2026
  • What began as the fake browser update trick has now been outcompeted and effectively replaced by a more contagious variant.
    — Zak Doffman, Forbes.com, 5 Aug. 2025
  • China is outcompeting the US as a regional financier.
    — Bloomberg, 10 Apr. 2026
  • Key criteria include rapid spread, high reproduction and the ability to outcompete native species.
    — Stephen Underwood, Hartford Courant, 4 May 2026
  • As a result, slipper limpets compete with native mollusks for food and in areas where limpet populations are high, can outcompete oysters, clams, and mussels.
    — Stephen Underwood, Hartford Courant, 5 Aug. 2025
  • Pebble wasn’t outcompeted feature-by-feature.
    — Matt Rogers, Fortune, 30 May 2026
  • This unsightly weed is an aggressive grower that outcompetes turf for water, nutrients, and sunlight, resulting in a stressed lawn with bald patches.
    — Madeline Buiano, Martha Stewart, 26 Apr. 2026
  • Regular burning limits the growth of saplings and bushes, keeping the environment clear of exotic species that can outcompete native grasses.
    — Julia James, Dallas Morning News, 26 Mar. 2026
  • Bebuzee’s strategy is not to outcompete each individually, but to unify them under one ecosystem.
    — Matt Emma, USA Today, 9 Mar. 2026
  • Certain shrubs spread quickly, taking nutrients from neighboring plants and outcompeting important native species.
    — Sj McShane, Martha Stewart, 5 Apr. 2026
  • Led by Herbert and their defense, the Chargers outcompeted the Eagles, who had their own blocking issues that would prove insurmountable.
    — Tom Krasovic, San Diego Union-Tribune, 13 Jan. 2026
  • Spotted knapweed often outcompetes native plants for resources and produces chemicals that inhibit the growth and germination of surrounding plants.
    — Keith Matheny, Freep.com, 4 Feb. 2026
  • When fortified with adequate nutrients, especially nitrogen, a lawn can outcompete clover.
    — Megan Hughes, Better Homes & Gardens, 4 Oct. 2025
  • In most areas, it's considered highly invasive, and will spread quickly into surrounding areas, outcompeting important native plants.
    — Helena Madden, Martha Stewart, 14 Mar. 2026
  • This Great Oxidation Event was followed by mass extinction, as organisms using oxygen outcompeted just about everybody else.
    — Yasemin Saplakoglu, Quanta Magazine, 13 May 2026
  • El Nino also subdues the hurricane season in the Atlantic because there is so much heat in the Pacific that outcompetes the Atlantic, Berardelli added.
    — ABC News, 8 May 2026
  • But then China swept in and used state subsidies, lower environmental standards, and a long-term industrial strategy to outcompete Western companies.
    — Big Think, 22 Apr. 2026
  • The freshwater mollusks threaten the state’s water infrastructure by clogging pipes and power systems, and threaten aquatic ecosystems and habitats by outcompeting native species and contributing to algal blooms via filter feeding.
    — Sacbee.com, 28 Aug. 2025
  • That jump predicted a surge in cases as the Omicron variant exploded, outcompeting the previous Delta variant, and creating the pandemic’s largest spike of activity.
    — Paul Sisson, San Diego Union-Tribune, 8 Jan. 2026

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'outcompete.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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