up to one's ears
1
6.9
- idiom
- Informal
:
hasta las orejas
- You're in it up to your ears.
- he's up to his ears
Examples
-
Judge... your daughter may be up to her ears in something she can't handle.
-
After accepting multiple projects, I'm up to my ears in work this month.
-
I was up to my ears in bull then too.
-
They got court cases up to their ears.
-
He's up to his ears in reports.
-
I'm up to my ears in regret, so what's one more?
-
I've been up to my ears in work, Peg.
-
He's always up to his ears in debt, and Sir Robert's been known to help him out.
Fiction book (1993) -
We've got the mortgage on the house, I'm up to my ears in credit…
-
She's up to her ears in assignments and feels overwhelmed with deadlines.
Synonyms
23
3.9
To be very busy with many tasks
3
7.6
Very busy with difficult work or problems and almost overwhelmed
2
7.9
Being very busy with a lot of difficult work or problems
2
6.7
Very involved in a difficult or serious problem
1
4.4
You have too much work and not enough time
1
7.9
Very involved in a difficult situation with too much to do
1
7.9
Very busy with too many things to do
Very busy with more work than you can handle
So busy with many tasks that you cannot rest or take breaks
Having too much work or too many problems to deal with
Very busy dealing with many difficult problems
Antonyms
How Involved
2
5.1
- Informal
1
4.4
- Informal
1
6.9
- Informal
2
7.9
130
4.0
∞
1.0
79
3.5
Surface Forms
Morphology
up + to + one's + ears
The expression uses the extent marker 'up to' plus a body-part 'ears' to evoke something reaching a high level; a learner who knows 'up to' (as far as) and 'ears' could plausibly infer being overwhelmed or buried in something. However, this is a conventionalized bodily-submersion metaphor rather than a fully literal composition and is not necessarily mirrored across languages, so partial inference is possible but not guaranteed for a B1 learner.
Etymology
Up to one's ears may come from the image of a person standing in water or buried in papers with the level reaching their ears, so they are covered and cannot move easily. That's why it means 'extremely busy' or 'overwhelmed'.