all fours

SEE SYNONYMS FOR all fours ON THESAURUS.COM

noun

all four limbs or extremities; the four legs or feet of an animal or both arms and both legs or both hands and both feet of a person: The cat rolled off the ledge but landed on all fours.
(used with a singular verb) Also called high-low-jack, old sledge, pitch, seven-up. Cards. a game for two or three players or two partnerships in which a 52-card pack is used, the object being to win special scoring values for the highest trump, the lowest trump, the jack, the ace, the ten, and the face cards.

Idioms for all fours

    on all fours,
    1. in conformity with; corresponding exactly with.
    2. (of a person) on the hands and feet, or the hands and knees: I had to go on all fours to squeeze through the low opening.

Origin of all fours

First recorded in 1555–65

Words nearby all fours

all fools' day, all for, all for love, all for one and one for all, all for the best, all fours, all gone, all hail, all hours, all in, all in a day's work

Words related to on all fours

dragging, groveling, crawling, sneaking, inching, shuffling, writhing, skulking, shambling, hobbling, slinking, worming, slithering, squirming

British Dictionary definitions for on all fours

all fours

noun

both the arms and legs of a person or all the legs of a quadruped (esp in the phrase on all fours)
another name for seven-up

Idioms and Phrases with on all fours

on all fours

On one's hands and knees, as in Seven of us were on all fours, looking for the lost earring in the sand. In this idiom fours refers to the four limbs. [1300s]