Word.ws English Dictionary

the shirt off one's back

the shirt off one's back noun: everything currently in the possession of a person.

Noun

the shirt off one's back (plural not attested)

  1. (idiomatic, no plural) Everything currently in the possession of a person.
    • "I don't plan on selling my Nuclear shares," replied Lillis. "But I've been on Wall Street for fifty years, and if there's one thing I learned, it's that at the right price I'd sell the shirt off my back."1991, Richard Preston, American Steel: Hot Metal Men and the Resurrection of the Rust Belt, New York: Prentice Hall Press, →ISBN, page 89
    • Please, gentlemen. The men in there just took my money. I can't get robbed twice in one day! What do you want, the shirt off my back? Come on.2009, Dan Houser, Rupert Humphries, Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost and Damned, Rockstar Games, Xbox 360, level/area: Roman's Holiday

Questions about the shirt off one's back

What does the shirt off one's back mean?
The shirt off one's back means everything currently in the possession of a person.
What part of speech is the shirt off one's back?
The shirt off one's back is a noun.

Words near the shirt off one's back in the dictionary

  1. The Sea
  2. the second mouse gets the cheese
  3. The Settlement
  4. the seven bells
  5. the shape of things to come
  6. the shirt off one's back
  7. the shit
  8. the shit out of
  9. the shits
  10. the shoe is on the other foot
  11. the shoemaker always wears the worst shoes

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: the shirt off one's back (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.

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