adv. (common).—Colloquial for SMART (q.v.): e.g., ALL THERE = (1) alert, first-rate, up to the mark, nothing wanting. Also TO GET THERE = (1) to achieve; and (2) TO MAKE ONE’S JACK (q.v.): also TO GET THERE WITH BOTH FEET.
1821. P. EGAN, Life in London, II. i. The slavey and her master—the surgeon and the resurrection-man—… they are ALL THERE.
1877. W. H. THOMSON, Five Years’ Penal Servitude, iii. 220. He stayed in a place doing the grand and sucking the flats till the folks began to smoke him as not ALL THERE.
1880. Punch, 7 Aug., 59. ALL THERE! Clerk (who has called to see the gas-meter). ‘Is yours a wet, or a dry meter, madam?’ Young Wife (who does not like to show ignorance). ‘Well, it is rather damp, I’m afraid!’
1883. PAYN, Thicker than Water, xx. It was his excusable boast … that when anything was wanted he was ALL THERE.
1887. F. FRANCIS, Jun., Saddle and Moccasin, viii. 144. He said as he’d been gambling, and was two hundred dollars ahead of the town. He ‘GOT THERE WITH BOTH FEET’ at starting, and was eight hundred ahead once.
1888. New York Herald, 29 July. Although not a delegate he GOT THERE all the same.
1901. Free Lance, 27 April, 79, 1. She was ALL THERE, and when she found that robbery was meant she made a stout resistance.
