Word.ws English Dictionary

up to the nines

up to the nines prepositional phrase: streetwise; knowing.

Prepositional phrase

  1. (UK, obsolete, slang) Streetwise; knowing.
    • I'm up to the nines! What's the first move?1910, The Scrap Book, volume 9, page 41

Questions about up to the nines

What does up to the nines mean?
Up to the nines means streetwise; knowing.
What part of speech is up to the nines?
Up to the nines is a prepositional phrase.

Words near up to the nines in the dictionary

  1. up to the elbows
  2. up to the hammer
  3. up to the hub
  4. up to the knocker
  5. up to the mark
  6. up to the nines
  7. up to the tonsils
  8. up to time
  9. up top
  10. up until
  11. up what spring

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: up 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.

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