Word.ws English Dictionary

shatting on one's uppers

shatting on one's uppers phrase: completely out of money; broke.

Phrase

shatting on one's uppers

  1. (US, slang) Completely out of money; broke.
    • ‘She has to blow and she's shatting on her uppers. She figures the peeper can get her some dough.’1939, Raymond Chandler, The Big Sleep, Penguin, published 2011, page 188

Origin of shatting on one's uppers

From variant of shitting + uppers.

Questions about shatting on one's uppers

What does shatting on one's uppers mean?
Shatting on one's uppers means completely out of money; broke.
What part of speech is shatting on one's uppers?
Shatting on one's uppers is a phrase.

Words near shatting on one's uppers in the dictionary

  1. shatters
  2. shatters the ice
  3. shatterstone
  4. shatterstones
  5. shattery
  6. shatting on one's uppers
  7. Shatto
  8. Shattock
  9. Shattocks
  10. Shatton
  11. Shattos

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: shatting on one's uppers (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-shatting on one's uppers.ogg.

Cite this entry: “shatting on one's uppers.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/shatting_on_one%27s_uppers. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.