on one's uppers
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English[edit]
Etymology[edit]
From uppers (“the top part of a leather shoe”), having worn through the sole.
Prepositional phrase[edit]
- destitute; poor.
- Synonym: down on one's uppers
- 1902, Guy Wetmore Carryl, How a Cat Was Annoyed and a Poet Was Booted:
- “We are bound toward the scuppers,
And the time has come to act,
Or we’ll both be on our uppers
For a fact!”