river

Said sarcastically to someone whose whining, complaints, or tears fall on unsympathetic ears. Most often said as "cry me a river." You can cry me a river, but you're still not going to that party tonight! A: "It's so unfair, I work so hard, but I only get a raise every two years!" B: "Oh, cry me a river, I haven't gotten a raise since I first started working!"

to travel upstream on a river in a boat or ship. We sailed up the Amazon River in a large, seagoing ship. It was not possible to sail up the Mississippi as far as we wanted.

to betray someone; to reveal damaging information about someone. Bill told everything he knew about Bob, and that sold Bob down the river. You'll be sorry if you sell me out. Lefty sold out his friends, and we'll all soon be arrested.

to sell all of something. Have they sold their supply out yet? The stores sold out their stocks of that game long before Christmas.

Fig. to send someone to prison. (Underworld. As done by a judge or indirectly by the police.) They tried to send me up the river, but my testimony got me off. I'm gonna send you up the river if it's the last thing I do.

Sl. in prison. (Underworld.) Gary was up the river for a couple of years, but that doesn't make him an outcast, does it? The judge who sent him up the river was indicted for accepting bribery. If Gary had only known sooner!

to do something that hurts someone who trusted you Workers complained that their leaders sold them down the river in the latest contract negotiations.

to accept money to stop following your principles So many musicians simply sell out to the demands of the industry and abandon their art.

to stop being loyal to someone or something He accused Congress of selling out the American people to lawyers who opposed the bill. I could sell you all out and go straight to the police with this information. Related vocabulary: sell somebody down the river

to sell all of something, so that there is none left We sold out of the souvenir T-shirts in the first couple of hours. During the summer the campgrounds are sold out each night. Her cruises regularly book up months in advance and almost always sell out.

to do something which harms or disappoints someone who trusted you, in order to get an advantage for yourself A lot of people feel they have been sold down the river by a government who have failed to keep their pre-election promises.

Betray, as in They kept the merger a secret until the last minute, so the employees who were laid off felt they'd been sold down the river . This expression, dating from the mid-1800s, alludes to slaves being sold down the Mississippi River to work as laborers on cotton plantations. Its figurative use dates from the late 1800s.

To or in prison, as in They sent him up the river for five years. This phrase originally referred to Sing-Sing Prison, on the Hudson River about 30 miles north of New York City. So used from about 1890 on, it was broadened to apply to any prison by the early 1900s.

In or into prison.

To betray the trust or faith of.

In jail. The infamous Sing Sing Correctional Facility, located in the town of Ossining thirty miles north of New York City, sits on the Hudson River shoreline. Any criminal convicted in a New York court and sentenced to be imprisoned there was sent “up the river.” The phrase, made popular in gangster movies, began to be applied to other prisons in the country, whether or not the cells boasted of a river view. “Up the river” should not be confused with “sold down the river,” meaning “deceived” and derived from the antebellum practice of Northern slaveholders selling troublesome slaves down the Mississippi River for a life of endless toil on cotton plantations.