apple-pie order

American  

noun

1. excellent or perfect order.

   Her desk is always in apple-pie order.

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apple-pie order British  

noun

1. informal perfect order or condition

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apple-pie order Idioms  

1. Extreme neatness, as in David keeps his financial records in apple-pie order. This term is generally believed to be an English corruption of the French nappes pliées, “neatly folded linen.” [Early 1600s]

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Etymology

Origin of apple-pie order

First recorded in 1770–80

Example Sentences

That exertion was easy compared with getting the farm in apple-pie order.

From Architectural Digest • Jun. 9, 2015

With his political credentials in apple-pie order, he was rewarded by the usually cautious critics with an instantaneous rave.

From Time Magazine Archive

After settling everything in apple-pie order in a mad hurry, they wait for hours for the colonel to make his appearance and see if the buttons are polished.

From Time Magazine Archive

This week the corps had virtually every foot of the 1,200-mile North African railway system back in apple-pie order and running on schedule.

From Time Magazine Archive

He was carrying the fighting harness, which was strapped up in apple-pie order according to his own dodges and wrinkles—for, from now on, he was Lancelot’s squire.

From "The Once and Future King" by T. H. White