Keep your pecker up
Suggest a CorrectionMeaning
Remain cheerful, courageous, or determined despite difficulty. This chiefly British expression is old-fashioned and easily misunderstood internationally.
Origin
In nineteenth-century British colloquial English, pecker could mean courage, spirits, or good cheer, and keep your pecker up meant keep your morale up. The Oxford English Dictionary treats that abstract sense as central; a related explanation connects pecker with a bird's beak and hence a person's nose or head held up. The phrase is recorded by the mid-1840s and is common in later Victorian writing. Pecker developed a vulgar sense of penis chiefly in American English, so what was once innocent encouragement can now sound sexual outside its historical British setting.
Research Sources
Variants
- Keep one's pecker up
- Keep up your pecker
Usage Examples
- In the Victorian novel, the schoolboy is told to keep his pecker up after failing the examination.
- Keep your pecker up, old chap; another opportunity will come along.
- A modern international audience may misread the phrase, so keep your chin up is usually the clearer choice.