ship-shape and Bristol-fashion

Adjective

shipshape and Bristol fashion (not comparable)

1. (UK, dated) Of a vessel: tidy, and with its equipment in good order, properly stowed, etc.; shipshape.
   • It was there I first got alongside of Moll [a ship]. She is as pretty a girl as ever stepped between the stem and stern of a vessel. And to see her upon a lee-shore! It made me change colour in the face like a dolphin. "My box of diamonds," says I to the girl, "this is neither ship-shape, nor...[1803, John Davis, “Voyage from Baltimore in Maryland, to Cowes in the Isle of Wight”, in Travels of Four Years and a Half in the United States of America; during 1798, 1799, 1800, 1801, and 1802....
2. (UK, dated, figuratively) Neatly and properly arranged or organized; neat and tidy, tidy.
   • He must be a little dictator. In all well-run businesses there is such a man. In the Secret Service, it is Paymaster Captain Troop, RN Retired, Head of Admin., whose job it is, in his own words, ‘to keep the place shipshape and Bristol fashion’.1957 April 8, Ian Fleming, “The Soft Life”, in From Russia, with Love, London: Pan Books, published 1959 (1963 printing), →OCLC, part 2 (The Execution), page 82

   Synonyms:

   all Sir Garnet, squared away, Bristol fashion and shipshape, in order, neat, neat and tidy, neat as a new pin, neat as a pin, nice as ninepence, orderly

   Antonyms:

   chaotic, cluttered, disorderly, messy, ree-raw, riotous, sluttish, tempestuous, tumultuary, tumultuous

See all 3 meanings of shipshape and Bristol fashion