Advertisement
Advertisement
bolt upright
Idioms and Phrases
Precisely perpendicular, erect in carriage, as in She sat bolt upright in her pew . This expression was used in slightly different form by Chaucer in the late 1300s: “She was ... long as a mast and upright as a bolt” ( The Miller's Tale ).Example Sentences
Ms Woods said Mr Skripal was conscious and sat “bolt upright” on a bench, Ms Woods said.
Actress Tuppence Middleton says she has "woken up bolt upright in the middle of the night" since rehearsals began for her latest play.
“As soon as I started reading it, I sat bolt upright. I didn’t think it would be that good.”
When middle-class visitors were finally accorded seats, Wilmore said, theaters preserved their old sightlines by forcing the sitters bolt upright — “part of that Victorian strictness in all areas: ‘You jolly well better sit up and listen!’”
Bobby woke and sat bolt upright.
Advertisement
Related Words
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Browse