** To be able to ** means to outshine someone in appearance: to look so much better that the person next to you loses against your background. Example: "he could have done it", "I could have been in the photo".
Where: from English slang mog / mogging. The word comes from the vocabulary of looksmaxxing, an online culture where people discuss how to improve their appearance. It is usually abbreviated as AMOG (alpha male of the group).
How to use:
- ** can someone** — look better than a particular person, especially when you are near in a photo or video;
- **I could have been ** — I lost in appearance against someone else's background;
- ** moging** is the very phenomenon when one person looks noticeably more advantageous against the background of another.
Often the word sounds funny or ironic, for example, in the comments to joint photos of celebrities. But it has a toxic connotation: it reduces people to comparing their appearance, so it can be offensive to seriously talk about someone like that.