Definition

1. Noun:

   • A person who acts before others to gain an advantage: Refers to someone who seizes an opportunity or takes action ahead of others, often in a competitive context, to secure a benefit or favorable position.
   • A player who plays before another (in a game): In games, the player whose turn comes before another player's.

2. Adjective:

   • Having precedence or an upper hand: Describing a situation or person that is in a superior, leading, or advantageous position relative to others.

Usage Examples

• Noun:
  • Trong vụ mua bán đó, hắn là tay trên, giành hết phần lợi. (In that deal, he was the one who acted first, taking all the profit.)
  • Đến lượt tay trên được đánh trước. (It's the turn of the player who goes first.)
• Adjective:
  • Công ty đó đang ở thế tay trên trong cuộc đàm phán. (That company is in a superior position in the negotiation.)

Advanced Usage

• The term often implies a strategic or cunning move to get ahead, not merely being first in a neutral sequence. It can carry a connotation of gaining an unfair advantage or outmaneuvering someone.
• "phỗng tay trên": A common phrase meaning to deftly seize an opportunity or advantage from right under someone else's nose; to preempt someone.
  • Nó phỗng tay trên lấy mất hợp đồng. (He deftly snatched the contract from under our noses.)

Variants and Related Words

• Đi trước (v): to go first, to precede.
• Chiếm ưu thế (v): to gain the upper hand.
• Lợi thế (n): advantage.

Synonyms

• Front-runner: A person who leads in a competition or contest.
• Preemptor: One who acts before others to prevent their action.
• Front hand (figurative): Having a positional advantage.

Related Idioms

• Phỗng tay trên: As described in Advanced Usage, this is the primary idiom directly incorporating the term.
• Cướp cơ hội: To steal an opportunity (a related concept but not using the term "tay trên").

1. by stealing a march on somebodytealing a march on somebody