Meanings
- not comparableInvolving or relating to divisions or relations between different social classes, especially domestic servants and their upper-class employers.
In Gilded-Age Newport, an upstairs-downstairs romance between a well-born son and a humble maid is cut short of marriage.
2015, Antoinette Stockenberg, Time After Time1 more example
How different the thrust of a college education is today. It is broadly accessible and egalitarian. But an upstairs-downstairs syndrome still exists in American higher education.
2003, John A. Flower, Downstairs, Upstairs: The Changed Spirit and Face of College Life in America, page 166
Origin
From the practice of servants living on the lower floors or basements of grand houses, while their employers live on the upper floors.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
upstairs-downstairs. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/upstairs-downstairs
“upstairs-downstairs.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/upstairs-downstairs. Accessed November 5, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “upstairs-downstairs,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/upstairs-downstairs.
Source: upstairs-downstairs on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.