on the level
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
Honest and truthful in one's words or actions
Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt
trung thực và chân thành trong lời nói hoặc hành động
Machine-translated — suggest a fix
Literally: on a flat surface
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
Horbury boasts its own concert society, the Horbury Band, and the Horbury Pageant Players.
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “on the level” mean?
Honest and truthful in one's words or actions Literally: on a flat surface
Is “on the level” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.