upset the applecart

present singular third person upsets the applecart · participle present upsetting the applecart · alternative upset the apple cart

1. idiomaticTo disorganize or spoil something, especially an established arrangement or plan.

   She told me herself just now that the worst was over. And those confounded people must go and upset the applecart.

   1922, William Somerset Maugham, Caesar's Wife, act 3, page 136

   3 more examples

   “There are three reasons,” Trent answered. “First, he may find his way to England and upset the applecart; […]”

   1900, E. Phillips Oppenheim, chapter 22, in A Millionaire of Yesterday

   Last week the Senate Banking Committee upset the carefully stacked apple cart when it voted 10 to 5 not to approve the Administration's bill.

   1979 December 10, “Business: Putting Brakes on a Bailout”, in Time, archived from the original on 10 Feb 2012

   This kind of impact causes contusions in the front and back areas of the brain and can create microscopic bleeding and shearing of neural pathways, causing synapses to misfire, upsetting the applecart of your brain, sometimes forever.

   2011, Mira Bartók, The Memory Palace, →ISBN, page 5

   Synonyms: cook someone's goose, drive a coach and horses through, ball up, blight, bumble, botch, bugger up, bungle