upstairs

comparative further upstairs · comparative farther upstairs · superlative furthest upstairs · superlative farthest upstairs · alternative archaic up stairs · alternative archaic up-stairs

1. Located on a higher floor or level of a building.

   We rent out the upstairs bedroom to a student.

2. informalball gamesPertaining to a pitched ball that is high, and usually outside the strike zone.

   That fastball was upstairs for a ball.

3. human sciencesOriginating in or associated with a higher matrix clause, as opposed to a lower embedded clause.

   Weaker (tolerant) quantificational values (some and many, sometimes and often) and stronger values (all, always) rule out any lower-clause reading for upstairs negation in the same contexts.

   1989, Laurence R. Horn, chapter 5, in A Natural History of Negation, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, →ISBN, page 327

comparative further upstairs · comparative farther upstairs · superlative furthest upstairs · superlative farthest upstairs · alternative archaic up stairs · alternative archaic up-stairs

1. Up the stairs; on or to a higher floor or level.

   The woman upstairs told the people outside to stop reveling.

   5 more examples

   I’ll take my shoes and put them away the next time I go upstairs.

   I hate the people who live upstairs, and I especially hate their piano.

   There was more dancing and singing up stairs, more wit and conversation below; all were at liberty, and all stayed late; and all talked so much of the happiness they had enjoyed, that Lady Anne felt herself exceedingly tempted to give another party before the season finally closed.

   1838 (date written), L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XX, in Lady Anne Granard; or, Keeping up Appearances. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn, […], published 1842, →OCLC, page 255

   In a large bedroom upstairs, the window of which was thickly curtained with a great woollen shawl lately discarded by the landlady, Mrs. Rolliver, were gathered on this evening nearly a dozen persons, all seeking vinous bliss; […]

   1891, Thomas Hardy, chapter IV, in Tess of the d’Urbervilles: A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented […], volume I, London: James R[ipley] Osgood, McIlvaine and Co., […], →OCLC, phase the first (The Maiden), pages 40–41

   Marsha, let’s go upstairs!

   2016, VOA Learning English (public domain)

2. informalIn the brain or mind.

   After Joe did a hula dance on the kitchen table, his friends wondered if he didn’t have a lot going on upstairs.

   1 more example

   I guess I'm just used to sailors / I think they got water on the brain / I think they got more water upstairs / Than they got sugar on a candy cane

   1982 September 24, Prince, “Nasty Girl”, in Vanity 6, performed by Vanity 6, track 1

3. informalIn heaven, especially with regard to where a deity might be found.
4. human sciencesIn or to a higher matrix clause, as opposed to a lower embedded clause.

   Consider first the derivation in which movement is not involved, namely the surface subject is base-generated in the matrix clause (Recall that it is possible in principle to base generate the subject upstairs, as we saw in Section 2).

   2007, Tomohiro Fujii, “Cyclic chain reduction”, in Norbert Carver, Jairo Nunes, editors, The Copy Theory of Movement (Linguistik Aktuell; 107), Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company, →DOI, →ISBN, page 300

alternative archaic up stairs · alternative archaic up-stairs

1. An upper storey.

   an upstairs bathroom

2. euphemisticslangA woman's breasts.