Word.ws English Dictionary

to the nines

to the nines prepositional phrase: to perfection; fully, wholly.

Prepositional phrase

  1. To perfection; fully, wholly.

Synonyms of to the nines

9 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of to the nines

Origin of to the nines

From Scots, perhaps a rebracketing of to then eyne (“to the eyes”) or to thyn eyne (“(up) to your eyes”).

Questions about to the nines

What does to the nines mean?
To the nines means to perfection; fully, wholly.
What part of speech is to the nines?
To the nines is a prepositional phrase.

Words near to the nines in the dictionary

  1. to the marrow
  2. to the max
  3. to the minute
  4. to the moon
  5. to the moon and back
  6. to the nines
  7. to the nth degree
  8. to the point
  9. to the power of
  10. to the prejudice of
  11. to the purpose

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: to the nines (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: “to the nines.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/to_the_nines. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.