turn up trumps
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
To have a successful or advantageous outcome
Literally: to turn up the trump cards
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
With £400 to the first man home and £300 to the first lady and considerable training grants throughout, Lisburn looks sure to turn up trumps once again.
The wheel of fortune has turned up trumps and offers you a handsome payola today.
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 “turn up trumps” mean?
To have a successful or advantageous outcome Literally: to turn up the trump cards
Is “turn up trumps” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.