bang-up

[ bang-uhp ]
See synonyms for bang-up on Thesaurus.com
adjectiveInformal.
  1. excellent; extraordinary.

Origin of bang-up

1
First recorded in 1800–10; adj. use of verb phrase bang up

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use bang-up in a sentence

  • One day Doctor Kirby and me was walking along the main street of a little town and we seen a bang-up funeral percession coming.

    Danny's Own Story | Don Marquis
  • Now, up in Kansas City we goes to a sumptious layout, pays less an' gets bang-up stuff.

    Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up | Clarence Edward Mulford
  • As in England, we will be bang up against an industrial awakening that will mark an epoch.

    The War After the War | Isaac Frederick Marcosson
  • Editor DeWitt took it for granted she would bring in a bang-up story when she returned to the newspaper office.

    Whispering Walls | Mildred A. Wirt

British Dictionary definitions for bang up

bang up

verb
  1. (tr, adverb) prison slang to lock up (a prisoner) in his or her cell, esp for the night

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Other Idioms and Phrases with bang-up

bang-up

Damage, injure, as in Banging up the car a second time will make Dad very unhappy, or Mother fell down the stairs and was all banged up. The verb to bang alone had this meaning from the 1500s on, up being added in the late 1800s. In the early 1800s it gave rise to the colloquial adjective bang-up, for excellent or very successful, as in David did a bang-up job baking the birthday cake.

The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.