From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishget the better of somebodyget the better of somebodya) DO something/TAKE ACTIONif your feelings or wishes get the better of you, they make you behave in a way you would not normally behave My curiosity finally got the better of me and I opened the letter. I think her nerves got the better of her. b) BEAT/DEFEATto defeat someone or deal successfully with a problem → better
Examples from the Corpus
get the better of somebody• Alison Leigh refuses to let circumstances get the better of her.• I run my fingers over this invisible object, and little by little curiosity gets the better of me.• Bored in the isolation of his taxi, curiosity and perhaps hunger got the better of him.• But kids have a long tradition of getting the better of adults, going back to the Famous Five and beyond.• We killed him, but that really got the better of us.• Kramer's temper sometimes gets the better of him.• I allowed my feelings to get the better of me.• So mortals learned that it is not possible to get the better of Zeus or ever deceive him.• At the same time he said he had had to select his shots wisely to get the better of Chesnokov.• Blaise Cendrars witnessed a fight in which she was getting the better of Modigliani. 