one-man band | Idiomator

Meaning: Amusicianwho plays several musicalinstrumentsat once.(by extension,derogatory)A band in which the frontman does most of the work and is the spotlight or the center of attention, usually to the detriment of other band members.; (idiomatic,by extension)Anorganisationorbusinessthat is effectively run by only one person.Near-synonym:one-man army2007December 9, Peter Preston, “Challenges for the rising son”, inThe Observer, UK:The corporation he will someday inherit—growing, churning—won't work as aone-man band.2024July 3, Alexandra Topping, Jim Waterson, Tom Ambrose, “The Sun backs Labour on eve of election as Times also offers cautious support”, inThe Guardian‎[1],→ISSN:It goes on to argue that the Reform UK party is a “one-man bandwhich at best can win only a handful of MPs”, while the Liberal Democrats are dismissed as “a joke”.

Examples:

EN: From here on in, I'm a one-man band!
ES: A partir de hoy, no me des más consejos.
EN: But then I was a one-man band...
ES: Vale que yo solo era una banda...
EN: Also rodeos, carnivals, ballets, Indian tribal dances, Punch and Judy, a one-man band - all theatre.
ES: Y rodeos, carnavales, ballets, danzas tribales indias, guiñol, un hombre orquesta: todo es teatro.
EN: You're a real one-man band.
ES: Eres un verdadero bandido.
EN: You can do it all, boy. You´re a one-man band.
ES: Puedes llegar, solo.
EN: You're a one-man band.
ES: Nada te lo impide.
EN: I'm aware for your preference for acting as a one-man band, but this does happen to be a UNIT operation.
ES: Soy consciente de tu preferencia por actuar en solitario, pero esto pasa por ser una operación de UNIT.
EN: Like that one-man band guy that fell in his drum? No.
ES: ¿Cómo el tipo de la banda que se cayó en su tambor?
EN: Don't worry, me and my one-man band will give him some wholesome family entertainment!
ES: No se preocupe, capitán. Yo y mi ejército de un solo hombre vamos a darle algo de entretenimiento familiar.
EN: He´s a one-man band.
ES: Él es solitario.
EN: ♪ In llama land there's a one-man band ♪ ♪ And he'll toot his flute for you ♪
ES: En el país de las llamas un músico tocará la flauta para ti.
EN: Oh, why didn't I rent the one-man band?
ES: Oh, ¿por qué no rente a la banda de un solo tipo?
EN: A one-man band.
ES: - Una fiesta solitaria.
EN: Well, that's an ingenious plan, Cynthia, but what pharmaceutical company is going to trust their wonder weapon to a one-man band working out of his house?
ES: Bien, ese es un plan ingenioso, Cynthia, Pero ¿que compañía farmacéutica va a confiar... su mejor producto a la banda conformada por un solo hombre trabajando fuera de su casa?
EN: Unfortunately, he was kind of a one-man band.
ES: Desgraciadamente, él era algo así como una banda de un solo miembro.

Note: the examples for non latin scripts have a high likelihood of mistakes, we do not own any of this data and it is sourced from Wiktionary, the NLLB database and Opensubtitles. Please help us improve this by contributing correct examples. We will be working to fix this issue over time however it is a bigger issue due to the the difficulties in dealing with non latin scripts and grammatical structures(non-romantic/european languages have lower resources as well ).