to rights
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English
[edit]Etymology
[edit](This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)
Prepositional phrase
[edit]- Into proper order; properly.
- My shoulder was dislocated. It was agony to have it put to rights.
- I felt ill, but some fresh air and iced water set me to rights.
- (obsolete, informal) At once; immediately.
- 1726 October 28, [Jonathan Swift], Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. […] [Gulliver’s Travels], volume I, London: […] Benj[amin] Motte, […], →OCLC, part I (A Voyage to Lilliput):
- Then they knocked off some of the boards for the use of the ship, and when they had got all they had a mind for, let the hull drop into the sea, which, by reason of the many breaches made in the bottom and sides, sunk to rights.