Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • transitive verb To refuse to serve (an unwelcome customer) at a bar or restaurant.
  • transitive verb To throw out; eject.
  • transitive verb To throw away; discard.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The cardinal number immediately following eighty-five and preceding eighty-seven.
  • verb colloquial To cancel an order for food.
  • verb colloquial To remove an item from the menu.
  • verb colloquial To remove or eject, as a disruptive customer
  • verb colloquial To throw out; discard.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective being six more than eighty

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Probably from waiters' and bartenders' slang of the 1920s and 1930s, originally used to indicate that an item on the menu was not available, perhaps rhyming slang for nix.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Unknown for certain. Possibly rhyming slang for nix ("cancel, say no to") (given by the OED), or possibly part of a code of such numbers, created in the 1920s.

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word eighty-six.

Examples

  • Brown corduroy, the earflaps tied on top, the same size cap he bought when he was young, but at eighty-six

    New Cap 2010

  • With the publication of White House Diary, Carter, who will be eighty-six on October 1, clearly hopes to move up on the charts.

    Glenn C. Altschuler: Jimmy Carter's Last Campaign Glenn C. Altschuler 2010

  • Today dad is eighty-six years old, and spends most of his day trying to read the newspaper and understanding it.

    Lessons from Life « Sunayana’s Blog 2010

  • Brown corduroy, the earflaps tied on top, the same size cap he bought when he was young, but at eighty-six

    Lance Mannion: 2010

  • Lima, now eighty-six, described the incident during an interview at his home in East Providence this summer.

    GEORGE S LIMA 2010

  • Hennie Comfort is eighty-six and has lived in the mountains of Middle Swan, Colorado since before it was Colorado.

    Prayers for Sale by Sandra Dallas: Book summary 2010

  • I wish I could have gone but, honestly, at eighty-six that man wears me out.

    ALA aftermath Roger Sutton 2009

  • The completed design uses eighty-six containers of various sizes that were retrofitted into bedrooms and bolted together onsite.

    Adrianne Jeffries | Inhabitat 2009

  • I wish I could have gone but, honestly, at eighty-six that man wears me out.

    Archive 2009-07-01 Roger Sutton 2009

  • In 2006 some eighty-six evangelical leaders signed a statement saying, "Millions of people could die in this century because of climate change, most of them our poorest global neighbors."

    Victor Stenger: Global Warming and Religion Victor Stenger 2011

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.