Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (also straight up and down) a general term of emphasis, implying honesty and genuineness.

1860		T. Haliburton Season Ticket 33: Come now, no shuffling, but be straight up and down, like a cow’s tail. Say yes or no?
1890		A.C. Gunter Miss Nobody of Nowhere 248: Matilda, you know I have been a good, square, straight-up dad to you.
1907		W.M. Raine Bucky O’Connor (1910) 89: You’ll never know how a man’s eyes ache to see a straight-up white man in this land of greasers.
1935		G. Ingram Cockney Cavalcade 50: It’s all right! It’s straight up!
1943		R. Llewellyn None But the Lonely Heart 41: She was lovely, she was grand, a proper, right, straight up smasher of a bride.
1958		(con. 1940s) B. Behan Borstal Boy 71: That’s straight-up, Pad.
1962		R. Cook Crust on its Uppers 58: I don’t know where it’s going to come from [...] that’s straight up and down.
1995		G. Small Ruthless 215: We is just straight-up [out-and-out] gangster. Strictly gangster world we deal with.
1998		(con. 1986) G. Pelecanos Sweet Forever 46: When he asked about his father he got no straight-up answers.
1999		D. Looser ‘Boob Jargon’ in NZEJ 13 36: straight up adj. Honest, true, standing by one's friends.
2000		Hip-Hop Connection Jan. 77: I’m a straight up loner from outta nowhere.
2010		A. Steinberg Running the Books 169: There was this black dude - I’m talking, straight up black guy - who dressed like them, the Hasids.
2014		E. Pruitt ‘Houston’ in ThugLit Mar. [ebook] ’Don’t worry. They’re straight up. They’re fine’.

2. respectable.

1909		W.M. Raine Brand Blotters (1912) 193: Say I’m a villain and a bad lot. Wouldn’t it be a good thing for me to tie up with a fine, straight-up young lady like you?
1956		J. Blake letter 22 Aug. in Joint (1972) 87: I’ve met several students at The State College for blacks at Orangeburg, rather straight-up types.
1994		N. McCall Makes Me Wanna Holler (1995) 45: Nobody wanted her as a straight-up girl.

3. honest, trustworthy.

1935		G. Ingram Cockney Cavalcade 50: ‘Is he straight up?’ Jack was cautious and wanted to know if the man were safe.
1987		LL Cool J ‘Breakthrough’ 🎵 Straight up and down, no special effects.
1992		S.L. Hills Tragic Magic 173: Rudy offered me something at that point that I hadn’t had in a long time: a straight-up friendship.
1997		Simon & Burns Corner (1998) 26: But DeAndre is straight up. He won’t shake the vial or cut the product. He’s not greedy that way.
2001		D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 179/1: straight up adj. honest, true.
2002		J. Cameron Hell on Hoe Street 153: Straight up geezer is Kamran.
2014		C. Eble (ed.) UNC-CH Campus Sl. Spring 2014 Fall .
2021		‘Aidan Truhen’ Seven Demons 50: ‘[A] straight-up guy who goes first through the door’.

4. undeniable.

1999		J. Cameron Brown Bread in Wengen [ebook] ‘Go talk to your straight up grass over there’ [...] Sitting down the corner was little Singing Simpson.
2001		(con. 1975–6) E. Little Steel Toes 152: Those eyes turn from angelic to straight-up demonic.
2005		G. Pelecanos Drama City 103: [...] living with a no-ass straight-up fiend of a mother.

5. complete, unreserved.

1986		2 Live Crew ‘Get It Girl’ 🎵 Just straight-up lovin, come and get it girl.
1997		(con. 1970s) G. Pelecanos King Suckerman (1998) 23: What he picked up off the straight-up bullshit he saw on TV.
2010		A. Steinberg Running the Books 82: Can you skip the jail house panties, and just stick with the Georgia peach (straight up and down)?
2010		Codella and Bennett Alphaville (2011) 75: A lot of them were just straight-up junkies.
2020		D. Soh End of Gender 234: [I]t’s a straight-up lie to claim that a world without men would be a female utopia rid of cattiness, gossiping, and female competitiveness.

6. (US black) rigid, strict.

1997

L. Pettiway Workin’ It 115: Some of my teachers were bitches ’cause they some ... Well, they’re bitches because they ain’t play that [...] They were strictly straight up. You couldn’t even laugh or nothing like that.