dress to the nines
Meaning: To dress very smartly or elaborately.
Language: English
Literally: (Already vivid in English)
Example: “Everyone was dressed to the nines for the gala.”
Category: Daily Life
Origin: "To the nines" meant to perfection before clothes came into it: a Scottish poem of 1719 has "How to the Nines they did content me." "Dressed to the nines" is in print by the 1830s. Why nine is unknown, and the popular story of a smartly dressed 99th Regiment is later than the phrase.
Equivalents in other languages
- French: Se mettre sur son trente-et-un — literally: To put oneself on one's thirty-one
More idioms — Daily Life
- have friends in high places — To know influential people who can help one.
- get to the bottom of it — To discover the real cause or truth of a matter.
- be taken for a ride — To be cheated or deceived.
- have a short fuse — To lose one's temper easily.
- not to give a hoot — Not to care at all.
- have a blast — To have a very good time.
More English idioms
- with one hand tied behind one's back — Very easily; or, when forced on someone, at a great disadvantage.
- have a heart of gold — To be very kind and generous.
- be full of beans — To be lively and full of energy.
- set alarm bells ringing — To make someone suspect that something is wrong.
- get back on one's feet — To recover after an illness or a setback.
- throw the baby out with the bathwater — To discard something valuable while getting rid of what is unwanted.
From our tongue twisters
- How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? — A 'w/ch/ck' drill that accelerates comically — and nobody really knows the answer.
- The sixth sick sheikh's sixth sheep's sick. — Believed by Guinness to be among the hardest in English — 'six/sick/sheikh/sheep' blur in…
- Betty Botter bought some butter, but she said the butter's bitter. — A 'b / t / tt' plosive drill that bounces between Betty, butter, and bitter.