Word.ws English Dictionary

sit-up-and-beg

UK/ˌsɪtʌp(ə)n(d)ˈbɛɡ//ˌsɪtˌəpənˈbɛɡ/

sit-up-and-beg adjective: of a posture adopted by a person steering a vehicle (such as an aeroplane, car, or motorcycle): sitting up straight, not bent forward or leaning back.

Adjective

sit-up-and-beg (not comparable)

  1. (UK) Of a posture adopted by a person steering a vehicle (such as an aeroplane, car, or motorcycle): sitting up straight, not bent forward or leaning back.
    • The pilot is thus in a sit-up-and-beg attitude and so seriously exposed to the elements that, as Wing Commander Wallis admits, a hailstorm would probably mean a forced landing.1968 October 3, New Scientist, volume XL, London: Harrison, Raison and Co., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 8, column 2
    • Handlebars and other controls are supposed to improve control and comfort, they say. Motorcycles are supposed to fit people, not bend the rider into a shape dictated by the whim of fashion. The sit-up-and-beg posture keeps you hanging on against the wind and it's tiring.1979 February, “Yamaha XS100 Special: Cycle World Tests: With Flash or Without, the Eleven is Still Big, Strong and Stable”, in Allan Girdler, editor, Cycle World, volume 18, number 2, New York...
  2. (UK, specifically) Of a bicycle: having handlebars that are rather high and curve backwards, so that the rider sits upright rather than hunching forward; also, of the handlebars of a bicycle: rather high and curving backwards, thus requiring the rider to sit upright.
    • Manufacturers introduced many incremental improvements, […] By 1930 these changes extended the range of cycles that manufacturers could offer from the ‘roadster’ (steel frame, three-speed hub gears, level-operated brakes and ‘sit-up-and-beg’ handlebars) to lightweight racing bikes (alloy steel...1992, Vivien Walsh, Robin Roy, Margaret Bruce, Stephen Potter, “Perspectives on Design and Innovation”, in Winning by Design: Technology, Product Design and International Competitiveness, Oxford...
    • The four boys, now safely sitting on the plinth of the War Memorial, turned their attention to the sight of the Vicar who was cycling along the street on his sit-up-and-beg bicycle.1999 October, Frank Wrigley, “Thursday 7th July [1940] – The Vicar’s Secret”, in The Boy at Willows End: Growing Up in the Fens in 1940, Dereham, Norfolk: The Larks Press, →ISBN, page 59

Noun

sit-up-and-beg (plural sit-up-and-begs)

  1. (UK) A bicycle having handlebars that are rather high and curve backwards, so that the rider sits upright rather than hunching forward; a roadster.
    • I hadn't even found a proper bike shop – the one I did come across was full of the equivalent of our sit-up-and-begs.2001, Charlie Woods, “From Sepia to Vivid Colour”, in Bikie: A Love Affair with the Racing Bicycle, Edinburgh; London: Mainstream Publishing, →ISBN, page 58
    • Studying my bike in detail he then said, 'That's a good sit-up you've got.' For a moment I thought he thought I was riding a sit-up-and-beg when really I had a touring steed complete with drop handlebars. And then I realised my stumbling block. He had pronounced a very Kiwi sit-up for set-up.2007, Josie Dew, “Dannevirke, 12 February [2004]”, in Long Cloud Ride: A Cycling Adventure across New Zealand, London: Sphere, →ISBN, page 97
    Synonyms:
    high nelly

Examples of sit-up-and-beg in a sentence

  • To replace my first (secondhand sit-up-and-beg) bike, he insisted that I had another, bigger one.2007, Gwyneth Daniel, Trevor Daniel: Doing the Right Thing, Christchurch, Dorset: Willows Press, →ISBN:
  • Expect to pay Rs30 to Rs100 per day for an Indian-made sit-up-and-beg bike.2009, Joe Bindloss, Northeast India, 2nd edition, Footscray, Vic.: Lonely Planet, →ISBN:

Synonyms of sit-up-and-beg

Forms of sit-up-and-beg

pluralsit-up-and-begs

Origin of sit-up-and-beg

From sit up + and + beg, likening the position to a dog sitting up on its hindquarters and begging by holding its front paws out.

Words that rhyme with sit-up-and-beg

19 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about sit-up-and-beg

What does sit-up-and-beg mean?
Sit-up-and-beg means of a posture adopted by a person steering a vehicle (such as an aeroplane, car, or motorcycle): sitting up straight, not bent forward or leaning back.
How do you use sit-up-and-beg in a sentence?
To replace my first (secondhand sit-up-and-beg) bike, he insisted that I had another, bigger one.
What part of speech is sit-up-and-beg?
Sit-up-and-beg can be an adjective or a noun.
How do you pronounce sit-up-and-beg?
Sit-up-and-beg is pronounced /ˌsɪtʌp(ə)n(d)ˈbɛɡ/ (UK).

Words near sit-up-and-beg in the dictionary

  1. sit-skier
  2. sit-skiers
  3. sit-skiing
  4. sit-skis
  5. sit-up
  6. sit-up-and-beg
  7. sit-up-and-begs
  8. sit-upon
  9. sit-upons
  10. sit-ups
  11. Sita

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: sit-up-and-beg (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: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-sit-up-and-beg.wav.

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