mockers

put the mockers on (something)

To disrupt, foil, or cause problems to someone's plan, activity, or project. Primarily heard in UK. The caterer cancelled on me at the last minute, which really puts the mockers on this party! It will really put the mockers on our project if the board decides not to increase our funding. You would think the rise of cheap electric cars would put the mockers on Big Oil's profits, but they actually seem to be embracing the change.
See also: mockers, on, put
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

put the mockers on something

BRITISH, OLD-FASHIONED
If someone or something puts the mockers on something, they prevent it from happening or from being successful. The sending-off of Simon Walker after only 10 minutes certainly put the mockers on any thought of an English victory. Note: The origin of this expression is uncertain, but some people think that `mockers' may come from Yiddish.
See also: mockers, on, put, something
Collins COBUILD Idioms Dictionary, 3rd ed.

put the mockers on

1 put an end to; thwart. 2 bring bad luck to.
This expression originated as early 20th-century British slang. An Australian variant is put the mocks on.
1 1966 Lionel Davidson A Long Way to Shiloh Shimshon and the judo both seemed to have put the mockers on this particular idyll. We left soon after.
2 1970 Joyce Porter Dover Strikes Again This investigation had got the mockers on it from the start.
See also: mockers, on, put
Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary

put the ˈmockers on something

(British English, informal) stop something from happening or spoil its chances for success: According to the weather forecast, it’s going to rain, which will really put the mockers on our plans for a barbecue.
See also: mockers, on, put, something
Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary
See also:
  • put the mockers on
  • put the mockers on (something)
  • put the mockers on something
  • put/throw a spanner in the works
  • throw a monkey wrench in(to) (something)
  • throw a monkey wrench into
  • throw a spanner in the works
  • throw a spanner in(to) the works
  • put a (monkey) wrench in(to) the works
  • put a spanner in(to) the works
References in periodicals archive
Without mentioning who the 'mockers' were, Villegas pointed out that members of the clergy 'have been labeled as a bunch of hypocrites' and 'calumniated and slandered.'
Villegas to CBCP: Serve with 'open hands,' not 'clenched fists'
6 billion for the provision of free medicines in the government hospitals to the poor people of the Province but unfortunately money mockers did not hesitate to deprive off the poor of their rights and looting the state money.
CM task force team raids in Badami bagh, stolen medicines recovered
Wilkins was full of praise for Jones, who he admitted deserves sympathy with the cash and resulting player shortage that could yet put the mockers on any promotion dreams.
Premier League big guns were e needed to sink Cardiff challenge, insists Wilkins
"Who Are You" portrays a stalwart Vincent unhappily surrounded by mockers and scorners (as I, too, have experienced on many occasions).
VOX POP
Editorial Note: In the United States, two classes of antiviral drugs are approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for use in treating or preventing influenza virus infections: M2 ion channel Mockers and NAIs.
Update: drug susceptibility of swine-origin influenza A (H1N1) viruses, April 2009
And now she reckons the pressure she put on him may have put the mockers on her lad - leading to his horrendous miss.
BLAME ME SAYS CHRIS THE MISS'S MOTHER; ANOTHER SUNDAY MIRROR FOOTBALL EXCLUSIVE 'My 3-goal plea piled on pressure'
Zak puts the mockers on Sam's attempt to get his own home, then has a change of heart.
tv & soaps: emmerdale
Many coaches described their typical "mockers" as law-school bound students, a group presumably more competitive than the average student, given the adversary nature of American legal practice.
Competition in Political Science pedagogy
Matt glennon aims to put the mockers on a family party on Saturday.
I'll stop Deano
Of viruses isolated in the 1994-1995 flu season, 0.4 percent had mutations conferring resistance to the M2 Mockers. By the 2003-2004 season, 12.3 percent of all isolates carried resistance mutations.
Falling influence: influenza fighters have limited effects
Specifically, this work illustrates how Aristotle's proofs of logos, pathos, and ethos apply to undergraduate mock trial and how mockers must use them in their attempts to succeed in competition.
The rhetoric of mock trial debate: using logos, pathos and ethos in undergraduate competition
Henry James told us that caricature is "journalism made doubly vivid." Ezra Pound added, "Literature is news that stays news." Back to James on Daumier's contemporary, Gavarni: "the wittiest, the most literary and most acutely profane of all mockers with the pencil." And Vincent to Theo van Gogh: "Daumier's drawings are so true they almost make me forget my toothache." One Eisenman every eight hours keeps three dentists away.
Tim Davis
But he admitted that Klos's 'Goramesque' display almost put the mockers on his moment of glory.
FOOTBALL: Too Klos for Hart's comfort
CORONADO, CALIF.: In coming years American society may split into two warring factions: Survivor fanatics and Survivor mockers. The Lamb's Players Theatre Ensemble plays both camps in its wacky, interactive send-up of a "media-saturated, celebrity-obsessed" culture, The Survivor, playing May 26-July 14.
Reality melts. (Roaming Spotlight)
Galileo, in his final race, is likely to take on Fantastic Light again in the Classic but those in the know maintain the Boys In Blue fancy their older horse to put the mockers on the Derby hero again.
Horse racing: Battle talk sounds like same old story