pull up stakes
pull up stakes
1. To pack up and leave a campsite. After a week of roughing it in the countryside, we finally pulled up stakes and decided to stay in a bed and breakfast for the night before going back home.
2. By extension, to leave one's place of residence or employment and relocate elsewhere. I've loved living in the city, but now that we have a baby on the way, it's time to pull up stakes and find somewhere more affordable. I always told myself that I would pull up stakes after spending five years working for them.
See also: pull, stake, up
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.
pull up stakes
1. Lit. to pull up tent stakes to take down a tent in preparation to leaving. Let's pull up stakes and head home before the storm hits.
2. Fig. to end one's ties to a particular place; to get ready to move away from a place where one has lived or worked for a long time. Even after all these years, pulling up stakes is easier than you think. It's time to pull up stakes and move on.
See also: pull, stake, up
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs.
pull up stakes
Move away, leave one's home, job, or country. For example, We've lived here for years, but now it's time to pull up stakes. This expression alludes to the stakes that mark property boundaries. [Early 1800s]
See also: pull, stake, up
The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer.
pull up stakes
(of a person) move or go to live elsewhere. North AmericanThe stakes are the pegs or posts which secure a tent or which are put up as a palisade around a temporary settlement.
2000 Anthony Bourdain Kitchen Confidential Steven…has chosen to leave New York for Florida with his girlfriend, pulling up stakes, giving up his apartment, even bringing along his goldfish.
See also: pull, stake, up
Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary
pull up ˈstakes
(American English) leave your home and go to live in a different place: When the factories and businesses closed, most of the community were forced to pull up stakes and move south. OPPOSITE: put down (new) roots Stakes in this phrase are the sticks or posts that are put up in order to support a tent, mark a particular place, etc.
See also: pull, stake, up
Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary
pull up stakes
verbSee pull chocks
See also: pull, stake, up
McGraw-Hill's Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions
pull up stakes
To clear out; leave: She pulled up stakes in New England and moved to the desert.
See also: pull, stake, up
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition.
pull up stakes, to
To leave one’s residence, job, or country; to move on. This Americanism dates at least from the nineteenth century and may be older. It appeared in print in 1830 in Massachusetts Spy: “Our emigrants pulled up stakes and returned post haste to . . . Springfield.” The stakes presumably were posts marking property boundaries.
See also: pull, up
The Dictionary of Clichés by Christine Ammer
pull up stakes
To move, usually one's home. This phrase was first used by Virginia colonists in the early 17th century. Jamestown and other settlements were surrounded by wooden palisade stakes as a defense against marauding Native Americans. To change or expand one's residence would have meant moving the barriers too, much easier than to rebuild from scratch. The phrase is sometimes heard as “pick up stakes.” The opposite is “put down stakes.” The British equivalent is “up sticks,” the sticks referring to army tent pegs.
See also: pull, stake, up
Endangered Phrases by Steven D. Price
- pull up stakes, to
- up stakes
- make the bed
- make the bed (up)
- from hell to breakfast
- a dog's breakfast/dinner
- brekkie
- break camp
- a dog's breakfast
- shoot one’s breakfast