{"id":22409,"date":"2022-08-25T14:30:28","date_gmt":"2022-08-25T14:30:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/?p=22409"},"modified":"2022-08-25T14:30:30","modified_gmt":"2022-08-25T14:30:30","slug":"six-ways-to-sunday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/?p=22409","title":{"rendered":"Six Ways to Sunday"},"content":{"rendered":"

Six ways to Sunday<\/strong> is apparently an American expression that means \u2018in every possible way, with every alternative examined\u2019 or \u2018in every possible direction\u2019.<\/p>\n

The first meaning can be found in \u201cwe checked him out six ways to Sunday before offering him that big loan.\u201d while the second meaning is in \u201cmy necklace broke and the beads went six ways to Sunday\u201d.<\/p>\n

There are many variants on this phrase involving different numbers of ways ranging from two to a thousand. Some versions use different<\/strong>, both<\/strong> or many<\/strong> instead of numbers, and some replace to<\/strong> with from<\/strong> or for<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\"6<\/p>\n

According to The Phrase Finder<\/a>, the earliest known version of the phrase appeared in the American Turf Register and Sporting Magazine<\/em> in July 1832:<\/p>\n

\u201c[The horse] Nullifier, led to the post by a small dry looking man, with a hat that stands nine ways for Sunday<\/strong>, and whose antagonists quake at the sight of that old slouched beaver, as do the Bourbons still at the cocked hat of Napoleon.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Another example from the same year, which appears in the novel Westward Ho!<\/em> by James Kirke Paulding goes:<\/p>\n

\u201cLook!; they were stitched with a compass that pointed nine ways from Sunday<\/strong>\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The \u2018six ways to Sunday\u2019 version first appeared in The Chicago Tribune<\/em> in November 1925.<\/p>\n

World Wide Words<\/a> quotes an earlier sighting of the phrase in Captain Francis Grose\u2019s Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue<\/em> from 1785:<\/p>\n

\u201cSQUINT-A-PIPES. A squinting man or woman; said to be born in the middle of the week, and looking both ways for Sunday<\/strong>; or born in a hackney coach, and looking out of both windows; fit for a cook, one eye in the pot, and the other up the chimney; looking nine ways at once.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

According to The Free Dictionary<\/a>, this phrase means \u2018Thoroughly or completely; in every possible way; from every conceivable angle.\u2019 and variants include six ways to Sunday<\/strong>, six ways from Sunday<\/strong>, eight ways to Sunday<\/strong>, eight ways from Sunday<\/strong>, forty ways to Sunday<\/strong> and forty ways from Sunday<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Other variants of the phrase on Wiktionary<\/a> include every way to Sunday<\/strong>, six ways till Sunday<\/strong>, six ways for Sunday<\/strong>, six ways before Sunday<\/strong>, ten ways from Sunday<\/strong> and nine ways to Sunday<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Have you heard this phrase before? Do you use it? Do you know any similar phrases in English or other languages?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Six ways to Sunday is apparently an American expression that means \u2018in every possible way, with every alternative examined\u2019 or \u2018in every possible direction\u2019. The first meaning can be found in \u201cwe checked him out six ways to Sunday before offering him that big loan.\u201d while the second meaning is in \u201cmy necklace broke and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[104,107,125,10,78],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english","category-etymology","category-idioms","category-language","category-words-and-phrases"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22409"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22409\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22415,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22409\/revisions\/22415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}