2. Often used figuratively to mean to put up money, to cover costs: Parents are usually expected to ante up, or to pay, for their children's college education.
3. To increase an amount or level; such as, to raise the cost or price of something: The popular actress first demanded twice the salary offered to her but then she kept upping the ante.
4. To increase the risk or possible harm that could result from something: The new law ups the ante, or increases penalties, for people who cheat on their taxes.
Exceptions: antipasto (Italian, where anti-, means "before" + pasto "food") and anticipate.
Tanya's favorite auntie was always interested in the life styles and customs of the antebellum Southern states; however, she was also known to be very anti-oppressive of the poor and oppressed.
So, Tanya's aunt used her influence to ante up the commitment of the community to create a food bank.
Making up one’s mind ab ante.
Eric went to the train station ab ante of the train arriving at noon.
Specifically, in the United States, before the "Civil War" or before "The War between the States".
A direction on prescriptions indicating that medicine should be taken before meals.
Before the middle of the day or before noon (meridiem).
Used to designate the hours between midnight and noon (one second after 2400 hours and one second before 1200 hours?).
Made or done just before one’s death.
First of all.
In other words, "Don't start bragging before the contest is over."
2. Relating to any of those biblical figures regarded as fathers of the human race; especially, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and their forefathers, or the sons of Jacob.
[Don't throw] pearls before swine. Based on the verse found in the Bible; Matthew 7:6 in which it is written: "Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you" [tear you into pieces].
A caution against offering the uncultured anything of quality; or, a caution against presenting anything to those who have no appreciation for the value of the product that has been created.
From the Old Testament, Psalms 90:4.
Commonly used in international dealings to indicate that nothing is to be changed, or that there is to be a return to an earlier state of affairs.
Commonly used in international dealings to indicate that there is to be a return to an earlier state of affairs that existed before a war.
Ubi sunt motif is a poetic theme emphasizing the transience of youth, beauty, or life itself. The most famous ubi sunt lament is that of Francois Villon (15th c.) for the beautiful ladies now dead and gone begins with "But where are the snows of yesteryear?" The question may concern persons, places, or abstractions; it may open a poem or be used as a refrain.
A motif; from Medieval Latin motivus, "moving", is a unifying theme threaded through a work of art. In Thomas Wolfe's novels, the father-quest, not for his earthly father but for a power on which he could rely, is a dominant motif.