Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Upper hand   /ˈəpər hænd/   Listen
adjective
Upper  adj. compar.  (compar. of Up) Being further up, literally or figuratively; higher in place, position, rank, dignity, or the like; superior; as, the upper lip; the upper side of a thing; the upper house of a legislature.
The upper hand, the superiority; the advantage. See To have the upper hand, under Hand.
Upper Bench (Eng. Hist.), the name of the highest court of common law (formerly King's Bench) during the Commonwealth.
Upper case, the top one of a pair of compositor's cases. See the Note under 1st Case, n., 3.
Upper covert (Zool.), one of the coverts situated above the bases of the tail quills.
Upper deck (Naut.), the topmost deck of any vessel; the spar deck.
Upper leather, the leather for the vamps and quarters of shoes.
Upper strake (Naut.), the strake next to the deck, usually of hard wood, and heavier than the other strakes.
Upper ten thousand, or (abbreviated) Upper ten, the ten thousand, more or less, who are highest in position or wealth; the upper class; the aristocracy. (Colloq.)
Upper topsail (Naut.), the upper half of a double topsail.
Upper works (Naut.), all those parts of the hull of a vessel that are properly above water.
Upper world.
(a)
The atmosphere.
(b)
Heaven.
(c)
This world; the earth; in distinction from the underworld.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Upper hand" Quotes from Famous Books



... never knew how to take a decided part at the proper moment. The Emperor is ill advised: he does not know Alexander; and is not aware, how crafty and ambitious the Russians are: if once they get the upper hand, all Germany will be subverted. Alexander will set the good-natured Francis, and all the little kings, to whom I gave crowns, playing at catch-corners. The Russians will become masters of the world ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. II • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon

... To those uncommon and improbable things which had met him since yesterday, was added another. But being weak and without his slaves, he restrained himself, especially since a wish to learn some details of Lygia's life gained the upper hand ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... serious than the marquis was inclined to admit. The capture of the Bastille and the slaughter of its defenders—the massacres of persons obnoxious to the mob, not only in the streets of Paris but in those of other great towns, proved that the lower class, if they once obtained the upper hand, were ready to go all lengths; while the number of the nobility who were flocking across the frontier showed that among this body there existed grievous apprehensions as to ...
— In the Reign of Terror - The Adventures of a Westminster Boy • G. A. Henty

... in their veins. Well-born women, their husbands' equals, feel the impulse to annoy them, to mark the points of their tolerance, like points at billiards, by some stinging word, partly in the spirit of diabolical malice, and to secure the upper hand or the right of turning ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac

... that has been their oppressor. In its name tens of thousands have been murdered, and I fear that the slaughter of those priests at Brill is but the first of a series of bloody reprisals that will take place wherever the people get the upper hand." ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty


More quotes...



Copyright © 2025 Dictionary One.com