wagon

To maintain one's sobriety; to abstain from alcohol. Jim's on the wagon again, so he doesn't want to go to the bar with us tonight.

Fig. to punish someone; to get even with someone; to plot against someone. If you ever do that again, I'll fix your wagon! Tommy! You clean up your room this instant, or I'll fix your wagon! He reported me to the boss, but I fixed his wagon. I knocked his lunch on the floor.

Prov. Always aspire to do great things.; Do not set pessimistic goals. (From Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay, "Civilization.") The speaker who delivered the high school commencement address challenged the graduating students to hitch their wagons to a star. Bob: What do you want to be when you grow up? Child: I used to want to be a great actor, but my dad told me hardly anybody gets to be an actor, so now I have to pick something else. Bob: Nonsense. If you want to be an actor, then do your best to be an actor. Hitch your wagon to a star!

Fig. not drinking alcohol. No, I don't care for a cocktail. I'm on the wagon. Bob's old drinking buddies complained that he was no fun when he went on the wagon.

drinking alcohol again, after having stopped If she falls off the wagon again, she'll just have to pick herself up and try to stop drinking.

not drinking any alcohol, after a period of drinking regularly He's been on the wagon for ten years now.

to stop communicating with people not in your group to avoid their ideas or beliefs Americans are feeling it is an especially good time to spend time with family, to circle the wagons.

to start drinking alcohol again, especially too much alcohol, after a period when you have not drunk any Six months later he fell off the wagon in spectacular fashion with a three-day drinking spree.

to try to become successful by becoming involved with someone or something that is already successful or has a good chance of becoming successful He wisely decided to hitch his wagon to the environmentalist movement, which was then gaining support throughout the country. She hitched her wagon to a rising young star on the music scene.

someone who is on the wagon has decided not to drink any alcohol for a period of time He'd been an alcoholic once, but when I met him he'd been on the wagon for about five years.

Get even with someone, get revenge on someone, spoil someone's chance of success. For example, He may think he can win the election, but these ads will fix his wagon, or After what he did to her, her family's out to fix his wagon. This term uses fix in the sense of "punish someone" or "put someone in an awkward position," a usage dating from about 1800. The wagon was added in the 1900s, presumably making the phrase refer to putting sand in a wagon axle or similar sabotage.

Aim high, as in Bill's hitching his wagon to a star-he plans to be a partner by age thirty. This metaphoric expression was invented by essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson in 1870.

Abstaining from drinking alcoholic beverages, as in Don't offer her wine; she's on the wagon. This expression is a shortening of on the water wagon, referring to the horse-drawn water car once used to spray dirt roads to keep down the dust. Its present meaning dates from about 1900. The antonym off the wagon, used for a resumption of drinking, dates from the same period. B.J. Taylor used it in Extra Dry (1906): "It is better to have been on and off the wagon than never to have been on at all."

To take a defensive position; become defensive.

To get revenge on another.

No longer abstaining from alcoholic beverages.

Abstaining from alcoholic beverages.

Prepare your defenses. A line in Western movies, when the Indians were about to attack a wagon train, was the wagon master's shout to “circle the wagons!” The Conestogas and prairie schooners then formed a circle to make a barricade behind which men fired their rifles at their attackers who galloped around the perimeter while the womenfolk reloaded the weapons or tended to the injured. (Another “oater” convention had the cavalry appear over the horizon and charge to the rescue). You didn't have to wear a ten-gallon hat and carry a Winchester 73 to use the phrase. When trouble appeared, such as an advertising agency about to lose an important account, a “Mad Man” would summon his department with a “Let's get the wagons in a circle and save this sinking ship” (mixed metaphors were not unknown in the advertising business).

Set high goals. The phrase come from an 1862 Ralph Waldo Emerson essay “American Civilization”: “Now that is the wisdom of a man, in every instance of his labor, to hitch his wagon to a star, and see his chore done by the gods themselves. That is the way we are strong, by borrowing the might of the elements. The forces of steam, gravity, galvanism, light, magnets, wind, fire, serve us day by day, and cost us nothing.” It used to be heard among other bit of avuncular or graduation speech advice. Then advice for the future became more specific, like “plastics” in the movie The Graduate. Nowadays, in this economy, your guess is as good as mine.