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on one's uppers

prep_phrase

Etymology

From uppers (“the top part of a leather shoe”), having worn through the sole.

Definitions

  1. destitute

    destitute; poor.

    • “We are bound toward the scuppers, And the time has come to act, Or we’ll both be on our uppers For a fact!”

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for on one's uppers. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA