up to eleven

alternative up to 11

1. humorousidiomaticinformalUp to or beyond the maximum possible threshold; to an extremely high or strong degree.First known use 1984

   Oh, Lady Ebb, I'm up to eleven today after that last biscuit.

   2008, Robin Jones Gunn, chapter 14, in Sisterchicks Go Brit! (A Sisterchicks Book), Colorado Springs, Colo.: Multnomah Books, Random House, →ISBN, page 147

   5 more examples

   She and River looked at me hard; but I lowered my eyes and leaned forward, with the nonchalance turned up to eleven, extinguished my cigarette, made eye-contact and nodded curtly.

   1997, Matthew Branton, The Love Parade, London: Bloomsbury Publishing, published 2002, →ISBN, page 71

   But if we try to fly, especially carrying Zealand, we're going to be puking our guts out by the time we get all the way up there. Flying is like motion sickness turned up to eleven, […]

   2008 April, T. A. Pratt [pseudonym; Tim Pratt], chapter 15, in Poison Sleep, New York, N.Y.: Bantam Spectra, Bantam Dell, →ISBN, page 267

   It's the weekly half hour when the emotion is turned up to 11 but the atmosphere is so quietened that you can hear the dust clattering against the studio's lighting rig.

   2010 May 22, Shane Hegarty, “Intimate details prove too close to the chat-show bone”, in The Irish Times, Dublin: Irish Times, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 22 Apr 2016

   As we reach the city today, rush hour has been turned up to eleven, so there's plenty of waiting in traffic.

   2013, Mark Mason, “In which We Waver over a Fry-up, Learn How a Stand at Liverpool FC’s Ground Got Its Name, and Experience Fear and Loathing in Bristol”, in Move Along, Please: Land’s End to John O’Groats by Bus, London: Random House Books, →ISBN, page 73

   [W]hen you look at conditions, it's not all happy days down there. Well, maybe it's happier now. But what our textbook said? Was that they had, you know, torture parties there. Once. Where torturers get drunk and turn the dial up to eleven.

   2013 May, Charles Baxter, “Loyalty”, in Ellen Rosenbush, editor, Harper’s Magazine, volume 326, number 1956, New York, N.Y.: Harper’s Magazine Foundation, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 81, column 1

   Synonyms: all the way, from soup to nuts, in excelsis, to the backbone, to the bone, to the brim, to the core, to the fullest

present singular third person ups to eleven · participle present upping to eleven · participle past upped to eleven · past upped to eleven

1. slangtransitiveTo increase (something) to an extremely high or strong degree; to make (something) go over the top.