Word.ws English Dictionary

straight-up

straight-up adjective: true; unambiguous; unqualified; plainly so, with no bones about it. Also the alternative form of straight up.

Adjective

straight-up (not comparable)

  1. (colloquial) True; unambiguous; unqualified; plainly so, with no bones about it.
    • From her recent comments, I think she's a straight-up racist.
    • Because it doesn’t actually produce anything, some knock Rockstar as a straight-up patent troll.2012 May 21, Robert McMillan, “How Apple and Microsoft Armed 4,000 Patent Warheads”, in Wired
  2. Of an alcoholic drink: served straight up.
    • I'm going to go get a straight-up cocktail.

Also used as

straight-up is also the alternative form of straight up.

Origin of straight-up

From Middle English streight up (“straight, erect, not curved or crooked, direct, honest”), equivalent to straight + up.

Questions about straight-up

What does straight-up mean?
Straight-up means true; unambiguous; unqualified; plainly so, with no bones about it.
What part of speech is straight-up?
Straight-up is an adjective.

Words near straight-up in the dictionary

  1. straight-thinking
  2. straight-through
  3. straight-to-dvd
  4. straight-tusked elephant
  5. straight-tusked elephants
  6. straight-up
  7. straight-wash
  8. straight-washed
  9. straight-washes
  10. straight-washing
  11. straightaway

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: straight-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.

Last updated:

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