on the up-and-up
16
7.7
- idiom
- Informal
:
de fiar
- Lately, I've been on the up and up.
- totally on the up-and-up
- strictly on the up-and-up
- always on the up-and-up
It was all on the up and up and positive and I was still a bad, you know, wild child.
- It was all on the up and up and positive and I was still a bad, you know, wild child.
- But it seems that the the not being loyal is taken to another level when you're doing things that aren't on the up and up.
- But even in this industry of like being in media, being more on the right, I still heard it, still heard it from conservatives of like, you're on the up and up.
- So I had suspicion that things weren't on the up and up, but there was no way in the world I thought anybody could ever put money in front of patients.
- This is this is a consciousness that is not entirely on the up and up with itself or with other people who it is presenting.
Examples
-
Hey, Dwight, I swear, this time everything's strictly on the up and up.
-
The contractor assured us that his business practices are always on the up-and-up.
-
The business is on the up and up.
-
Everything about the drug trial is apparently on the up and up.
Fiction book (2000) -
Things were going to stay on the up and up, right?
Blog text (24) -
And a free press helps to make sure that elections are on the up and up.
Fiction book (2000) -
So, I had to start giving interviews to make sure everybody knew the casino was on the up and up.
Fiction book (1995) -
Benny seemed to be on the up and up.
Blog text (27) -
That's why we came down here to speak to Sanchez, just to make sure everything was on the up-and-up.
-
He's on the up-and-up.
Synonyms
132
7.7
Real and legal, for example a job or website
11
3.9
Open and honest, with nothing hidden, especially in business
6
4.9
Open and honest, not secret or dishonest
Antonyms
How Honest
Surface Forms
Morphology
on + the + up-and-up
The meaning 'honest and legitimate' is not compositionally derivable from knowing 'on' and the repeated particle 'up' — 'up-and-up' is an idiomatic, lexicalized unit whose sense (honesty) is arbitrary relative to the literal meanings of the parts. A B1 learner who knows the individual words would very likely not infer this meaning without prior exposure, so the expression is opaque.
Etymology
On the up-and-up may come from old card games: if the cards are shown up (face up) everyone can see them and the play is fair. So one popular story says that image of things being up and visible is why the phrase means 'honest' or 'legitimate'.