Word.ws English Dictionary

up goes the donkey

up goes the donkey phrase: the performance begins.

Phrase

up goes the donkey

  1. (obsolete) The performance begins.

Origin of up goes the donkey

Said to have originated from a travelling showman whose finale involved the hoisting of a donkey on a pole or ladder.

Questions about up goes the donkey

What does up goes the donkey mean?
Up goes the donkey means the performance begins.
What part of speech is up goes the donkey?
Up goes the donkey is a phrase.

Words near up goes the donkey in the dictionary

  1. up for sale
  2. up for the downstroke
  3. up from
  4. up front
  5. up gaze
  6. up goes the donkey
  7. Up Helly Aa
  8. up here
  9. up hill and down dale
  10. up hill and down dell
  11. Up Holland

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: up goes the donkey (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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Cite this entry: “up goes the donkey.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/up_goes_the_donkey. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.