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game is up, the
Idioms and Phrases
Also, the jig is up . The trick or deception has been exposed. For example, When they took inventory they realized what was missing, and the game was up for the department head . This expression dates from the mid-1800s and uses up in the sense of “over” or “lost.” The variant employs jig in the sense of “trickery,” a usage dating from about 1600.Example Sentences
She could be told by her party the game is up - the level of discontent within it is huge.
Now the game is up: The British prime minister, Theresa May, returned from her long negotiation with Brussels, which was not at all easy, and she has produced a deal with Europe, which is not at all profitable.
So, it is pretty clear now that our game is up—the mortgage is foreclosed.
The dramatist in him is hampered by the theorist who would "reform" all life—he is neither a socialist nor an upholder of female suffrage—and when some of his admiring critics talk of his "ideals of beauty and power," then I know the game is up—the prophet, the dogmatist, the pedant, not the poet, artist, and witty observer of life, are thrust in the foreground.
“Stop the engine,” he said; “the game is up; the dance is over!”
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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
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