peg the needle

Verb

peg the needle (third-person singular simple present pegs the needle, present participle pegging the needle, simple past and past participle pegged the needle)

1. To cause the hand of a dial indicator to reach the highest measurement, due to reaching the maximum measurable speed, pressure, etc.
   • "Even so, all six subjects immediately pegged the needle in their first attempt to reach midscale."1957, Transactions of the New York Academy of Sciences
   • "If that pegs the needle, then the wiring between the sender and gauge is bad."1989 December, Popular Mechanics, volume 166, number 12
2. (idiomatic) To achieve the maximum level of something, to max out, to pull out all the stops.
   • "There will be plenty of time to cool off when you're dead, so you might as well peg your needle to the red."2008 August 22, Nick Barbaro, “The Luv Doc”, in The Austin Chronicle
   • "Thus I suspected that a trip to Chelsea might peg the needle on the religious experience meter but if biodiesel one wanted, that is where one got it."2014, John E. Conway, Buckrammer's Tales: The Continuing Catboat Summers Adventures