Word.ws English Dictionary

elbows up

elbows up phrase: a command to play with physicality in ice hockey, as in the style of Gordie Howe.

Phrase

elbows up

  1. a command to play with physicality in ice hockey, as in the style of Gordie Howe
    1. (Canada, broadly, informal) a rallying cry to protect the nation, in reference to the defensive physical posture in ice hockey
      • We can't be a punching bag, and we have to get our elbows up.2025 January 29, Wab Kinew, Premier of Manitoba, speech
      • Elbows up. Elbows up.2025 March 1, Saturday Night Live, season 50, spoken by Mike Myers

Origin of elbows up

From Gordie Howe's prominent use of elbows while fighting in ice hockey. Political usage emerged during the 2025 United States trade war with Canada and Mexico and following Donald Trump's calls to annex Canada to the United States.

Questions about elbows up

What does elbows up mean?
Elbows up means a command to play with physicality in ice hockey, as in the style of Gordie Howe.
What part of speech is elbows up?
Elbows up is a phrase.

Words near elbows up in the dictionary

  1. elbowings
  2. elbowless
  3. elbowlike
  4. elbowroom
  5. elbows
  6. elbows up
  7. elbowy
  8. Elbrus
  9. Elburg
  10. Elburton
  11. Elburz

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: elbows up (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “elbows up.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/elbows_up. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.