bang to rights
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.26 in modern English
19
Scrabble Score
12
Letters
2
Syllables
10
Unique Chars
Meaning
adv
Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see bang (adverb), to rights.
verb
To have sufficient, indisputable evidence that a person's actions are generally perceived to be wrong; to catch red-handed.
British usage
Example Sentences
- "We had a man once who got caught with a bundle of railroad stocks. They got him bang to rights and would have shoved him, only[…] when he swore he’d found them, they couldn’t prove he hadn’t."
- "The silk! Hide it! Throw it away! If they get us with that—we’re bang to rights."
- "Looking at the evidence, I’d assumed that the hapless pair was bang to rights and that we’d have little trouble placing him on remand and giving the law-abiding residents of Surrey a brief respite."
- "Once, after a spammer trolled Nanae, accusing antis of having no life, Mad Pierre sarcastically responded that the spammer was correct. ¶ “Damn, you’ve got us bang to rights. We have no lives. None. At all.”"
- "Tyler tries to dismiss Vidal's characterization of him as a pseudo-intellectual buffoon, but succeeds only in demonstrating that Vidal had him bang to rights."
- "He wished he were in London, where a girl in a minicab would set him bang to rights."
Etymology
From bang (“completely”) + to rights (“properly”). Originally US; attested from the start of the 20th century.
Usage
- British usage
Inflected Forms
more bang to rights (comparative)
most bang to rights (superlative)
banged to rights (alternative)
bangs to rights (present, singular)
banging to rights (participle, present)
banged to rights (participle, past)
banged to rights (past)