all fours

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noun

all four limbs or extremities; the four legs or feet of an animal or both arms and both legs or both hands and both feet of a person: The cat rolled off the ledge but landed on all fours.

(used with a singular verb)Also called high-low-jack, old sledge, pitch, seven-up. Cards. a game for two or three players or two partnerships in which a 52-card pack is used, the object being to win special scoring values for the highest trump, the lowest trump, the jack, the ace, the ten, and the face cards.

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Idioms about all fours

on all fours,

in conformity with; corresponding exactly with.
(of a person) on the hands and feet, or the hands and knees: I had to go on all fours to squeeze through the low opening.

Origin of all fours

First recorded in 1555–65

Words nearby all fours

All Fools' Day, all for, All for Love, All for one and one for all, all for the best, all fours, all gone, all hail, Allhallowmas, Allhallows, Allhallows Eve

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

How to use all fours in a sentence

It's all a muddle, a compromise, a monstrosity, like everything else you produce; there's nothing in it that goes on all-fours.
The Awkward Age|Henry James
Now we ran among the birches; now stooping behind low humps upon the mountain side; now crawling on all-fours among the heather.
The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 10 (of 25)|Robert Louis Stevenson
"All-fours," derived its name from the four chances involved, for each of which a point was scored.
Journal and Letters of Philip Vickers Fithian: A Plantation Tutor of the Old Dominion, 1773-1774.|Philip Vickers Fithian
Through the smoke, and over the sloping peak of the roof from the rear, came a slim, dark shape on its all-fours.
Those Times And These|Irvin S. Cobb

For three years she was a cripple, and could move about only on all-fours; but she was resigned to the will of God.
Beacon Lights of History, Volume VII|John Lord

British Dictionary definitions for all fours

all fours

noun

both the arms and legs of a person or all the legs of a quadruped (esp in the phrase on all fours)

another name for seven-up

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012