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.

❶ 1966Lionel DavidsonA Long Way to Shiloh Shimshon and the judo both seemed to have put the mockers on this particular idyll. We left soon after.

❷1970Joyce PorterDover Strikes Again This investigation had got the mockers on it from the start.