upset the applecart
upset the applecart verb: to disorganize or spoil something, especially an established arrangement or plan.
Verb
upset the applecart (third-person singular simple present upsets the applecart, present participle upsetting the applecart, simple past and past participle upset the applecart)
- To disorganize or spoil something, especially an established arrangement or plan.
- “There are three reasons,” Trent answered. “First, he may find his way to England and upset the applecart; […]”1900, E. Phillips Oppenheim, chapter 22, in A Millionaire of Yesterday
- She told me herself just now that the worst was over. And those confounded people must go and upset the applecart.1922, William Somerset Maugham, Caesar's Wife, act 3, page 136
- Synonyms:
- cook someone's goose, drive a coach and horses through, ball up, blight, bumble, botch, bugger up, bungle, contaminate, corrupt
Synonyms of upset the applecart
- cook someone's goose
- drive a coach and horses through
- blight
- bumble
- botch
- bugger up
- bungle
- contaminate
- corrupt
- crab
30 more synonymsFewer synonyms
- deprave
- disrupt
- disturb
- foil
- fuck up
- jack up
- mar
- mess up
- mishandle
- mommick
- pollute
- put a crimp in
- ruin
- screw up
- soil
- sour
- spoil
- stain
- undo
- upset
- turn upside down
- vitiate
- burst someone's bubble
- piss in someone's cereal
- piss in someone's Cheerios
- piss in someone's cornflakes
- piss on someone's chips
- piss on someone's bonfire
- piss on someone's campfire
- put a damper on
Forms of upset the applecart
| third-person singular present | upsets the applecart |
|---|---|
| present participle | upsetting the applecart |
| past participle | upset the applecart |
| past | upset the applecart |
| alternative form | upset the apple cart |
Questions about upset the applecart
- What does upset the applecart mean?
- Upset the applecart means to disorganize or spoil something, especially an established arrangement or plan.
- What part of speech is upset the applecart?
- Upset the applecart is a verb.
- What is the past tense of upset the applecart?
- The past tense of upset the applecart is upset the applecart.
Words near upset the applecart in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: upset the applecart (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:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-upset the applecart.ogg.
Cite this entry: “upset the applecart.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/upset_the_applecart. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.