six ways to Sunday
3
9.3
- idiom
- Informal
:
de todas las maneras posibles
- People will check your facts six ways to Sunday.
- screwed six ways to Sunday
Examples
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Where, if you don't know you've been snooped six ways to Sunday, has your reasonable expectation of privacy been invaded?
Blog text (17) -
We've warned them six ways to Sunday!
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Powers has fucked us six ways to Sunday.
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Hey, they really, really shave you six ways to Sunday, George.
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She also said you fucked it up six ways to Sunday.
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Remember what you said to me when them Billy Yanks were kicking my sorry ass six ways to Sunday?
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Darling, if I have to give refunds, I am buggered six ways to Sunday.
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While the war has been dissected six ways to Sunday, there are still gaping holes in our understanding of it, and several questions remain unanswered.
Blog text (10) -
This concept has been discussed six ways to Sunday here, and I get the sense that some few really get it, and others are either vehemently opposed or really don't grasp the significance.
Blog text (32) -
The detective examined the crime scene six ways to Sunday to find any clues.
Synonyms
To try every possible way to do something
For a very long time or in a very complete way
Surface Forms
Morphology
The overall meaning 'in every possible way' is not predictably built from the literal parts: knowing 'six', 'way', 'to' and 'Sunday' does not lead a learner to infer 'every conceivable method' because the numeric + day pairing is idiomatic and historically opaque. This is a colloquial fixed expression whose sense must be learned as a whole rather than composed from the constituents, and similar logic is not consistently mirrored across other languages.
Etymology
The idiom six ways to Sunday may come from the image of trying six different ways and even one more on Sunday, so every method is checked and nothing is left out. That's why it means 'in every possible way'.