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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








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"Upper hand" Quotes from Famous Books



... struggling against this "side," as he called it, of his "culture," and in his hours of reaction he was all for steam tramways, "devils," and Kindergartens standing where they ought not. But there were moments when his old innocent craving for the picturesque got the upper hand; and in one of those moments Maitland had come across the chance of acquiring the lease of the ...
— The Mark Of Cain • Andrew Lang

... beans. Then it was practically over, but about sunset their guns got back at us again, and the artillery fight went on until it was moonlight. The chaps in our third company caught it rather badly, and then our guns seemed to find something and get the upper hand.... ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells

... and brought down my own horse. When we got the gun round one of the gunners was shot through the brain and fell at my feet. Another was shot while bringing up shell. Then we got a look in.' The roar of the cannon was deafening, but gradually the British were gaining the upper hand. Here and there the little knolls upon the further side which had erupted into constant flame lay cold and silent. One of the heavier guns was put out of action, and the other had been withdrawn for five hundred yards. But the infantry fire still crackled and rippled along ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle

... Boehme himself was in before they can fully understand him.[11] He is profoundly impressed, {214} as his great contemporary, Milton, was, with the strange birth of new sects "now sprung up in England," but he hopes that "goodness will get the upper hand and that the fruits of the spirit will prevail," and his mind "is led to think" that through Boehme's message, which has been very beneficial in other nations, "our troubled, doubting souls in England may receive much Comfort, ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones

... do any crazy thing imaginable, if he lets it get the upper hand. There's only a few square miles of marsh and brush here, with the town already crowding up against it. In a few years it will be drained and the land used for industrial development and so on, then the fools will have to find some other ...
— The Short Life • Francis Donovan


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