up to snuff

comparative more up to snuff · superlative most up to snuff

1. slangAdequate; of acceptable quality; satisfying an appropriate standard.

   About 40% of U.S. counties lack full-time public-health service. . . . Many registered hospitals are not up to snuff.

   1945 January 15, “State of the Nation's Health”, in Time

2. UKdatedslangMentally alert, shrewd, savvy.

   "Dombey," says the Major, with appropriate action, "that is the hand of Joseph Bagstock: of plain old Joey B. . . . a rough and tough, and possibly an up-to-snuff, old vagabond."

   1846 October 1 – 1848 April 1, Charles Dickens, chapter 31, in Dombey and Son, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1848, →OCLC

   1 more example

   But the people, who prided themselves on being what they called üppen zie schnuffen, or, as we should say, "up to snuff," and equal to every occasion, had already seen a way out of the difficulty.

   1904, P. G. Wodehouse, chapter 7, in William Tell Told Again