Word: outdid
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...ancient Greek painters Zeuxis and Parrhasius vied, according to legend, to see who could produce the most realistic painting. Zeuxis illustrated grapes so lifelike that birds swooped down and tried to eat them. Parrhasius outdid him, however, by fashioning a curtain that Zeuxis, mistaking for fabric, attempted to pull open. A long line of artists have since striven to equal Parrhasius' success by bestowing an illusory third dimension to flat, featureless walls and ceilings. Known as trompe l'oeil (fool the eye), the style reached its prime in the Renaissance and during the Baroque period, when painters embellished churches...
Lionel developed into one of the most versatile character actors of the 1930s and '40s. But he was afflicted with physical ailments and marital woes. Trapped in Hollywood, he turned to morphine. John outdid them both. Peters theorizes that the Great Profile was "androgynous . . . To mask his vulnerability, he adopted a supermasculine pose: hard-drinking, profane, whoring, cynical. He lived in terror of being unmasked." Yet drunk or hung over -- which was most of the time -- John became a matinee idol, a superb comedian and the most celebrated Hamlet...
...against Cornell, the Crimson allowed Big Red tailback John McNiff to rumble for a personal-best 189 yards, including a 66-yarder for a TD. Last week against Princeton, Tigers tailback Eric Hamilton burned the Harvard D for 133 yards, including a 49-yard scoring sprint. Saturday, Page outdid them both, scooting for a 222 yards on 23 carries, including 28-and 49-yard TD jaunts...
Last month, during a rally a few days before the Illinois primary, the five- term Democratic lawmaker outdid himself. Clumsily parodying a calypso song about a suspicious husband who wonders why his wife's purse is filled with money, he accused his black opponent, Mel Reynolds, of receiving more than $26,000 in contributions from pro-Israel political-action committees or from individual Jewish donors who were members of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. "He who pays the piper calls the tune," said Savage. "Where did he get all that money?" Attended by security men from the organization...
...Rattle and Hum (Island, 1988). In which the rockers with the decade's biggest reach and most tender conscience discovered America, and outdid themselves, besting even their breakthrough The Joshua Tree album...