toes up

adj — 2 senses

toes up

adj

Etymology From toes + up, in reference to a corpse lying on its back.

1

Idiomatic, Slang Of a person, dead or killed.

Groves, of the Forty-sixth, is gone "toes up".1862, Charles James Lever, Davenport Dunn, page 119:

2

Idiomatic, Slang Broken, completely failed so as to become inactive.

The land deals in Tokyo've gone toes up since the bubble burst, but the landlord's still trying to push through a deal with a developer.2005, Mo Hayder, The devil of Nanking, page 42:

Entry derived from the Wiktionary, under licence CC BY-SA 4.0 — list of authors.