Meanings
- not comparableuncommonIn good condition, fine, excellent.
“It’s done,” Morgan said. “Excellent. Things are looking oojah-cum-spiff.”
2015, Roger DeBeers, Sr., Murder is Forever, page 213 more examples
“[…]the first thing tomorrow, my dear fellow, I must take you round and show you my gardens.” “I shall look forward to it keenly,” said Psmith. “They are, I can readily imagine, distinctly oojah-cum-spiff.”
1923, P.G. Wodehouse, Leave it to Psmith, page 95“All you have to do,” I said, “is to carry on here for a few weeks more, and everything will be oojah-cum-spiff.”
1926, P.G. Wodehouse, “Jeeves and the impending doom”, in The Strand, volume 72, page 605He thought for a long time and said, “You don’t spell it, you just say it.” The word in question was “croos”: it is a word for “lively”, “fit”, “oojah-cum-spiff” – I have no idea whether I have spelt it correctly; it is possibly the first time it has ever been committed to paper.
2014 [1987 June 6], R. W. F. Poole, “’Nuff said”, in The Buried Treasures, newspaper column of Daily Telegraph Weekend, archived from the original on 10 Jul 2023
Origin
Coined by British novelist P. G. Wodehouse in 1923; see quotations below. From the noun oojah-cum-pivvy (“an unknown thing; a whatsit”) and adjective spiffy (“dapper, fine”).
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
oojah-cum-spiff. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/oojah-cum-spiff
“oojah-cum-spiff.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/oojah-cum-spiff. Accessed November 5, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “oojah-cum-spiff,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/oojah-cum-spiff.
Source: oojah-cum-spiff on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.