fair and square

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Idioms and Phrases

Just and honest, as in He won the race fair and square . This redundant expression— fair and square mean essentially the same thing—probably owes its long life to its rhyme. [Early 1600s]

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Example Sentences

Examples have not been reviewed.

That's how they can go from humiliating Verstappen and Red Bull in Miami to being beaten fair and square in Imola - although had Piastri held on to the lead at the first corner on Sunday, he may well have been able to take a defensive win in a similar fashion to Verstappen's in Japan.

From BBC

He denied being "bribed" by Oricom and that any contract with NHS Lanarkshire was won "fair and square".

From BBC

"You can see Lewis was a beaten man and I won the fight fair and square. The ref took my dreams away tonight."

From BBC

That Sugar knows this, makes him determined to beat Hezekiah “fair and square.”

From Los Angeles Times

It is a brazen power grab disguised as a legal maneuver, akin to a child overcome by a tantrum who insists on rewriting the rules of a game he lost fair and square.

From Slate

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

fair fair ball

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