shipshape
Meticulously neat and tidy.
Adjective
- Meticulously neat and tidy.
- SHIP-shape, in a seaman-like manner; as "That mast is not rigged ship-shape;" "Put her about ship-shape," &c. - [1801, J. J. Moore, “SHIP-shape”, in The British Mariner’s Vocabulary, […], London: […] T. Hurst [et al.],...
- [I]t would have been more ship-shape to lower the bight of a rope, or a running bow-line, below me, than to seize an old sea-man by his head-lanyard; [...] - 1823, [James Fenimore Cooper], chapter V, in The Pioneers, or...
- When we set out on the jolly voyage of life, what a brave fleet there is around us, as stretching our fresh canvas to the breeze, all "shipshape and Bristol fashion," pennons flying, music playing, cheering each other...
Synonyms: shipshape and Bristol fashion tight all Sir Garnet Bristol fashion and shipshape in order neat neat and tidy neat as a new pin neat as a pin nice as ninepence orderly prest regular ruly shipshape squared away tidy tiptop tosh trig trim well-kept
Antonyms: chaotic cluttered disorderly messy ree-raw riotous sluttish tempestuous tumultuary tumultuous turbulent untidy
Origin
From ship + shapen (“shaped; wrought with a definite shape”), later shortened to shape. The word is of nautical origin, based on the obligation of a sailor to keep his or her quarters arranged neatly and securely due to the limited space typically allotted to service members aboard ship, and against turbulence at sea.
Forms
Derived
Bristol fashion and shipshape shipshape and Bristol fashion shipshapely unshipshape
Adverb
- Neatly and tidily to a meticulous extent.
- No—sir—if I sink, I sink; but d——e, I'll go down ship-shape and with dignity. - 1840, [James Fenimore Cooper], chapter XV, in The Pathfinder: Or, The Inland Sea. […], volume I, Philadelphia, Pa.: Lea and Blanchard,...
- I have said a good deal about Bertha, because I like her frank, easy way, her desire to please, and her pleasant natural manner of doing it. I do n't think novel-writers and picture-makers say enough about such girls....
- Some of you have n't sense enough to put a blanket ship-shape over a sick man. There! Leave it alone! I can die anyhow! - 1897, Joseph Conrad, chapter II, in The Children of the Sea: A Tale of the Forecastle, New York,...
Synonyms: handsomely