upper hand

From Middle English over hond, from Old English ofer- + hand (superior control; superior position). Not, as supposed, from a card game or counting-out game.

• "There was no refusing him, for he had got the complete upper hand of the community, and the peaceful burghers all stood in awe of him."
• "[C]uriosity began to get the upper hand, and I determined I should have one look through the cabin window."
• "There it was Razumov who had the upper hand, in a composed sense of his own superiority."
• "And because they live everywhere and reproduce quickly, bacteria have the upper hand."
• ""We've now protected the line from similar-sized flooding-events and bigger ones," he says. That's quite some claim for a line where floods have often had the upper hand in the past 16 years, causing track bed and embankments to be rebuilt."