Word.ws English Dictionary

upright man

upright man noun: the leader of a group of thieves or vagrants.

Noun (1)

upright man (plural upright men)

  1. (UK, archaic, thieves' cant) The leader of a group of thieves or vagrants.
    • I hope then you can cant, for by your cudgels, you sirra are an upright man.1611, Thomas Middleton, The Roaring Girle
    • And the gentry had kind hearts, and would have given baith lap and pannel to ony puir gypsy; and there was not one, from Johnnie Faa the upright man, to little Christie that was in the panniers, would cloyed a dud from them.1815, Sir Walter Scott, Guy Mannering
  2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see upright, man.
    • Later He gave him freedom from the Lord to live alone as an upright man to cultivate and keep His garden called Eden.2013, Danson Enogiomwan Ubebe, Return to God: The ABC of 'set Free by Knowing the Truth', →ISBN, page 19
    Synonyms:
    criminal leader

Noun (2) capitalized: Upright Man

Upright Man (plural Upright Men)

  1. (alternative) Alternative form of upright man.
    • The Upright Man, the chief of the crew, arose from his chair, donned his gown of state, a very ancient brocade dressing gown, filched, most probably, from the wardrobe of some strolling player, grasped his baton of office, a stout oaken truncheon, and sallied forth.1834, William Harrison Ainsworth, Rookwood, volume 2, page 303
    • The Upright Man who performed the ceremony was the elected King of the Beggars, the Rector Chory or Dimber-Damber.1936, Ronald Fuller, The Beggars' Brotherhood, page 92

Synonyms of upright man

  • criminal leader

Forms of upright man

pluralupright men
alternative formUpright Man
pluralUpright Men

Questions about upright man

What does upright man mean?
Upright man means the leader of a group of thieves or vagrants.
What part of speech is upright man?
Upright man is a noun.
What is the plural of upright man?
The plural of upright man is upright men.

Words near upright man in the dictionary

  1. upright basses
  2. upright bassist
  3. upright bassists
  4. upright bicycle
  5. upright freezer
  6. upright man
  7. upright men
  8. upright piano
  9. upright pianos
  10. upright yellow-sorrel
  11. uprighted

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: upright man (page history and authors); Upright Man (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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