up to eleven

Meanings

Adverb

• Beyond the maximum possible threshold

Verb

• to increase to an extreme degree, to make (something) go over the top

Origin

• First attested (in the form pull it back to eleven, referring to the eleven-position throttle of the powerful Chesapeake and Ohio class M-1 locomotive) in 1947, but popularized by a scene in the mockumentary This is Spinal Tap (1984), in which a musician shows off a guitar amplifier with setting knobs that go from zero to eleven, rather than the standard zero to ten.