on end

English

Pronunciation

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

Prepositional phrase

on end

1. (idiomatic) without interruption, without stopping, continuously

   These batteries last for hours on end.

   • 1964 July, Mary Allen, “A Woman's View of the New Coaches”, in Modern Railways, page 9:

     The arrangement of some seats facing and some one behind the other, bus fashion, seems a sensible compromise; I am one of those who do not enjoy staring at my fellow travellers for perhaps hours on end.

2. (dated) upright; erect; endways
   • 1843 April, Thomas Carlyle, “chapter 5, ’’Twelfth Century’’”, in Past and Present, American edition, Boston, Mass.: Charles C[offin] Little and James Brown, published 1843, →OCLC, book II (The Ancient Monk):

     How silent, on the other hand, lie all Cotton-trades and such like; not a steeple-chimney yet got on end from sea to sea!

   • 1913, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, chapter 8, in Sons and Lovers, London: Duckworth & Co. […], →OCLC:

     When he was dried he struggled into his shirt. Then, ruddy and shiny, with hair on end, and his flannelette shirt hanging over his pit-trousers, he stood warming the garments he was going to put on.

Translations

continuously, long

• Polish: nonstop (pl)
• Russian: непреры́вно (ru) n (neprerývno), подря́д (ru) n (podrjád)

upright, erect, endways

• Esperanto: hirta
• German: hochkant (de)
• Polish: do góry nogami (pl)
• Russian: стоймя́ (ru) n (stojmjá), ды́бом (ru) n (dýbom)
• Spanish: de canto

See also

• in a row
• stand on end

Further reading

• “on end”, in Cambridge English Dictionary, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, 1999–present.
• “on end”, in Collins English Dictionary.
• “days on end”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.
• “for days weeks etc on end” in Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, Longman.

Anagrams

• end-on, no end, onned