Meaning
Wearing extremely smart, elaborate, or glamorous clothes. The tone is informal and usually appreciative or amused rather than disapproving; British commentators note that in the UK it is now heard mostly among older speakers. Informal and appreciative; it admires effort and style rather than mocking excess. Regional use: General English.
Origin
The derivation is genuinely uncertain. The older building block is 'to the nines', meaning to perfection or to the highest degree: the earliest trace is 'to the Nine' in The Poetick Miscellenies of Mr John Rawlett (1687, probably alluding to the Nine Muses), followed by William Hamilton's 'How to the nines they did content me' (1719). The dress-specific phrase appears only in the 1830s: Gary Martin locates 'dressed up to the nines' in print in 1835, and Word Histories records 'dressed to the nines' in The Herald of New York on 11 March 1837. Folk explanations abound - tailors supposedly needing nine yards of cloth for a fine suit, the smartly uniformed 99th (Lanarkshire) Regiment of Foot raised in 1824, even a contraction of 'to thine eynes', meaning to the eyes - but none is supported by evidence. Martin argues the number is simply an emphatic one, while Word Histories favours John S. Farmer's link to John Heywood's 1562 'to the ninth degree', meaning to the utmost; on any account the specific reason for 'nine' remains unproven.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- dolled up to the nines
- done up to the nines
- dressed up to the nines
- got up to the nines
- to the nines
Usage Examples
- The whole bridal party arrived dressed to the nines, sequins catching the afternoon sun.
- She turned up to the interview dressed to the nines and left with a job offer.
- For one night a year, the fishing town gets dressed up to the nines for its winter ball.