balls to the wall
2
9.4
- idiom
- Offensive
:
a toda hostia (vulg.)
- Just Kendall's really going balls to the wall and you know you're on the other team, but I'm going to try to keep it targeted rather than terminal.
And that kind of keeps you in the game, but not balls to the wall kind of pushing yourself too hard.
- And that kind of keeps you in the game, but not balls to the wall kind of pushing yourself too hard.
- So how do you warm the body up so you don't go balls to the wall and hurt yourself?
- So then she just goes like fucking balls to the wall and just like smacks like her chest, like right on my thigh.
- Like The thing is, is the what I and I hate saying this, but like the Republican Party when they're in power, they go balls to the wall.
Examples
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During the final push to meet our deadline, we worked balls to the wall to finish the project on time.
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The team played balls to the wall in the championship game, leaving everything on the field.
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So while you were really going balls to the wall here with like, hey, I'm saying it.
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So how do you warm the body up so you don't go balls to the wall and hurt yourself?
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You know, I quite like it, especially on the days where I feel like I don't want to like go like full fucking balls to the wall with a real highlight.
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You'll get your balls to the wall ♪ ♪ Man ♪♪
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Well, say what you like about the man's ethics, he's a balls-to-the-wall businessman.
Fiction book (1994) -
Similarly, one had to control your cooldowns to make sure you had as much up as possible for the 20-second balls to the wall on each plate lift.
Blog text (11) -
He's a balls-to-the-wall businessman.
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If you're going to start a new venture, you need to go in balls to the wall to make it a success.
Synonyms
75
7.9
Happening very quickly, with great effort or very strongly
4
4.3
To do something as fast and as hard as possible
1
9.9
Very bold and energetic without caring about risk
Antonyms
How Intense
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'with maximum effort/intensity' is idiomatic and not compositionally derivable from 'ball(s)', 'to', 'the', and 'wall' — the literal image (including vulgar senses of "balls") does not transparently yield the idiomatic sense. A B1 learner who knows the constituent words but hasn't seen the expression would not reliably infer this meaning, so it is language-specific and opaque.
Etymology
Balls to the wall may come from old engine controls: one popular story says pilots or drivers pushed round knobs (balls) all the way forward until they hit the front panel (wall) to get maximum power. So the image of pushing the balls to the wall helps you remember it means 'with maximum effort or speed'.