wall — OAT · Shobdo

wall

noun

1 solid brick walls:

barrier, partition, room divider, enclosure, screen, panel, separator;

palisade;

dam, dyke.

2 an ancient city wall:

fortification, rampart, barricade, parapet, bulwark, stockade, bailey, breastwork.

3 we will work to break down the walls that stop world trade:

obstacle, barrier, barricade, fence;

impediment, hindrance, block, check.

□ drive someone up the wall

each one had some irritating habit that drove him up the wall:

enrage, incense, anger, infuriate, madden, inflame, antagonize, make someone's blood boil, make someone's hackles rise, rub up the wrong way, ruffle someone's feathers, ruffle, peeve;

annoy, irritate, exasperate, irk, vex, put out, provoke, pique, gall, displease;

aggravate, get someone, needle, bug, nettle, rile, miff, hack off;

informal drive mad/crazy, make someone see red, get someone's back up, get someone's dander up, get someone's goat, get under someone's skin, rattle someone's cage;

British, informal wind up, get at, nark, get across, get on someone's wick, get up someone's nose;

North American, informal tee off, tick off, burn up, gravel;

vulgar slang piss off;

informal , dated give someone the pip;

rare empurple.

□ go to the wall

informal

thousands of businesses are expected to go to the wall this year:

fail, collapse, go bankrupt, become insolvent, go into receivership, go into liquidation, crash, fold (up), go under, founder, be ruined, cave in;

informal go broke, go bust, go bump, go belly up, come a cropper, flop.

□ go up the wallinformal

this causes the dog to go up the wall and bark his head off:

lose one's temper, lose control, become enraged, go into a rage, fly into a temper/passion, boil over, boil over with rage, flare up, fire up, go berserk, throw a tantrum, explode;

informal blow one's top, fly off the handle, lose one's cool, get mad, go crazy, go wild, go bananas, hit the roof, go through the roof, see red, go off the deep end, blow a fuse/gasket, lose one's rag, go ape, burst a blood vessel, flip, flip one's lid, foam at the mouth, get all steamed up, get worked up, have a fit;

British, informal go spare, go crackers, do one's nut, get one's knickers in a twist, throw a wobbly;

North American, informal flip one's wig, blow one's lid/stack, have a cow, go postal, have a conniption fit;

vulgar slang go apeshit.

□ off the wall

North American, informal

an off-the-wall cable television program:

eccentric, zany, far out, freakish, quirky, idiosyncratic, unconventional, unorthodox, weird, outlandish, offbeat, off-center, bizarre, strange, unfamiliar;

French outré;

informal way-out, wacky, freaky, kooky, screwy, kinky, oddball, cranky;

North American, informal in left field.

▷antonyms conventional.

verb

1 the tenements walled in the space completely:

enclose, bound, encircle, confine, hem, circumscribe, close, shut, fence;

separate, partition.

2 one doorway had been walled up:

block, seal, close, brick up.

word links	wall
mural relating to a wall