Word.ws English Dictionary

straight up

straight up adverb: truthfully; honestly. Also the alternative form of straight-up.

straight up: truthfully; honestly
Image: Chris Corwin (berbercarpet), CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Adverb

straight up (not comparable)

  1. (informal) Truthfully; honestly.
  2. (informal) Unambiguously; bluntly; plainly and directly.
    • She told me straight up that she didn't want to go, then surprised me by coming.
    • She straight up hates him.
  3. (slang) To the utmost degree; really.
    • Wow, this food is straight up delicious.
  4. Of an alcoholic drink, chilled (stirred or shaken over ice) and strained before being served in a cocktail glass, with no ice.
    • Gimme a margarita, straight up.
    • Connoisseurs may prefer to savour their dram of single malt straight up. But, for beverage companies, that's not where the growth is.2025 December 27, “Cocktails in a can are the new frontier for drooping drinks giants”, in FT Weekend, London: The Financial Times Ltd., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 18
    Synonyms:
    up, straight

Adjective

straight up (not comparable)

  1. Open, frank.
    • I support what you are attempting to do, but quite frankly, I think we should be straight up about what some of the consequences are.1984, Joe Biden, “Women in Development: Looking to the Future”, in parliamentary debates (United States Senate)

Also used as

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

Synonyms of straight up

Antonyms

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 truthfully; honestly.
What part of speech is straight up?
Straight up can be an adverb or an adjective.

Words near straight up in the dictionary

  1. straight time
  2. straight times
  3. straight tip
  4. straight tips
  5. straight trade
  6. straight up
  7. straight up and down
  8. straight woman
  9. straight women
  10. straight, no chaser
  11. straight-A

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:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-straight up.wav.

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