Meaning of all dressed up and nowhere to go | Babel Free

Definitions

Elaborately attired or otherwise fully prepared for an anticipated situation or activity which, nevertheless, fails to occur.

idiomatic, not-comparable

Examples

“Listen to my tale of woe, It's terribly sad but true. All dressed up, no place to go, Each evening I'm awfully blue.”

“General Fauso Topete's troops, encamped south of here and faced with the impossible problem of how to attack the federal garrison without firing into Naco Ariz., virtually were in the position of soldiers all dressed up and nowhere to go.”

“"If you declare an emergency, you must have policies to carry out," adds Stein. "Otherwise you're like a man without a ticket — all dressed up and nowhere to go."”

“For the sailors aboard this aircraft carrier, war preparations had flipped into high gear. . . . By 4 a.m., when the deadline passed, orders to begin the assault had still not come down the ranks. For many of the commanders at sea, it was a classic "all dressed up and nowhere to go" scenario.”

“All dressed up and nowhere to go, nearly 7,000 competitors in almost 1,000 yachts were left drifting around in the central Solent yesterday.”

CEFR level