push up (the) daisies, v. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

push up (the) daisies v.

also kick the daisies, pick..., shove up..., push up the poppies

[prob. based on undated gravestone inscription: ‘With the tips of his toes / And the end of his nose / Turned up to the roots of the daisies’ variously attrib to an Irish or Scottish graveyard]

1. to die; thus pushing (up the) daisies, dead.

[1842		Era (London) 9 Oct. 6/2: Be kind to those dear little folks / When our toes are turned up to the daisies].
1915		R. Service ‘The Booby-Trap’ in Ballads of a Bohemian (1978) 372: Ah, Joe! we’ll be pushin’ up dysies . . . together, old Chummie . . . good-night!
1918		L.N. Smith Lingo of No Man’s Land 40: GONE WEST An expression for death; likewise, the slang ‘kicked-in.’ These terms together with the phrase, ‘Pushing up the daisies’ are the soldiers’ common terms for the fate that overtakes comrades and may momentarily overtake themselves.
1918		E.M. Roberts Flying Fighter 285: I had the consolation of knowing that so far I was not ‘pushing up the daisies’.
1927		C. Sandburg ‘On to the Morgue’ in Amer. Songbag 199: Where will we all be One hundred years from now? Pushing up the daisies.
1932		(con. 1919) R.E. Burns I Am a Fugitive 43: I thought of a few of my buddies, dead, forgotten, pushing up poppies.
1933		J.T. Farrell Gas-House McGinty 268: The company is gonna be here after I’m pickin’ daisies.
1934		(con. 1920s) J.T. Farrell Young Manhood in Studs Lonigan (1936) 454: The doc he says to me, ‘Les, cut it out, or you’ll be picking daisies!’.
1939		P. Cheyney Don’t Get Me Wrong (1956) 55: Pepper is dead as a cutlet an’ pushin’ up cactus seeds under four feet of desert earth in a wooden box.
1947		B. Schulberg Harder They Fall (1971) 292: He might as well be pushing up daisies.
1955		D. Niland Shiralee 140: We thought you musta been pushing up daisies, it’s been so long.
1957		G. Kersh Fowlers End (2001) 142: Many a good man now living on the fat o’ the land off of total disability would at this very moment be pushing up poppies.
1963		C. Wood ‘Prisoner and Escort’ in Cockade (1965) I iii: My old man was pushing up the daisies.
1976		J. Heller Good As Gold (1979) 42: Now he ain’t pushing around people. He’s pushing up daisies. A suicide.
1981		P. Wright Cockney Dialect and Sl. 92: Kick the daisies [...] ‘to die’.
1986		J.B. Keane Bodhrán Makers 174: Cackle away you oul’ crone but you may be sure that this bodhrán will be sounding long after we’re shoving up daisies.
1986		P. O’Farrell Tell me, Sean O’Farrell 35: I will be pushing up daisies so divil a much good will it do me!
1994		N. McCall Makes Me Wanna Holler (1995) 121: Another fraction of an inch closer and he would’ve been pushing up daisies.
2000		Guardian G2 12 Apr. 22: More crims were pushing up daisies.
2016		V. McDermid Out of Bounds (2017) 385: The man he thought was his real dad was pushing up the daisies two years before he was even born.
2024		J. Meades Empty Wigs (t/s) 222: ‘In fifty year I’ll have bee’ pushin up daisies... for I don know how lon...’.

2. in fig. use, to waste time, to lead a pointless existence.

1929

T. Wolfe Look Homeward, Angel (1930) 345: ‘I’m tired of pushing daisies here,’ said Ben. ‘I want to push them somewhere else.’.