up to snuff

English edit

up to snuff (comparative more up to snuff, superlative most up to snuff)

(slang) Adequate; of acceptable quality; satisfying an appropriate standard.
- 1945 January 15, “State of the Nation's Health”, in Time:
  About 40% of U.S. counties lack full-time public-health service. . . . Many registered hospitals are not up to snuff.
(chiefly British, dated, slang) Mentally alert, shrewd, savvy.
- 1846 October 1 – 1848 April 1, Charles Dickens, chapter 31, in Dombey and Son, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1848, →OCLC:
  "Dombey," says the Major, with appropriate action, "that is the hand of Joseph Bagstock: of plain old Joey B. . . . a rough and tough, and possibly an up-to-snuff, old vagabond."
- 1904, P. G. Wodehouse, chapter 7, in William Tell Told Again:
  But the people, who prided themselves on being what they called üppen zie schnuffen, or, as we should say, "up to snuff," and equal to every occasion, had already seen a way out of the difficulty.