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up alley

 - 3 dictionary results

al⋅ley

1  [al-ee]
Use up alley in a Sentence
–noun, plural -leys.
1. a passage, as through a continuous row of houses, permitting access from the street to backyards, garages, etc.
2. a narrow back street.
3. a walk, as in a garden, enclosed with hedges or shrubbery.
4. Bowling.
a. a long, narrow, wooden lane or floor along which the ball is rolled.
b. (often plural) a building for bowling.
c. bowling green.
5. Tennis. the space on each side of a tennis court between the doubles sideline and the service or singles sideline.
6. Rare. an aisle.
—Idiom
7. up or down one's alley, Informal. in keeping with or satisfying one's abilities, interests, or tastes: If you like science fiction, this book will be right up your alley.
Origin:
1350–1400; ME al(e)y < MF alee walk, passage, deriv. of fem. of ale, ptp. of aler to walk (F aller), prob. < VL *allārī, regularized from allātus, the suppletive ptp. of afferre to bring (pass. afferrī to be moved, conveyed, to betake oneself); F aller often allegedly < L ambulāre to walk (see amble ), but this offers grave phonetic problems, since the m and b would not normally be lost

Synonyms:
2. See street.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
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Slang Dictionary
(right) up (one's) alley

  1. mod.
    exactly one's kind of thing; exactly what one is best equipped to do. : It's not exactly up my alley, but I'll try it.
Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions by Richard A. Spears.Fourth Edition.
Copyright 2007. Published by McGraw Hill.
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Word Origin & History

alley 
1360, "passage in a house, covered way, walk in a garden," from O.Fr. alée, from alé, fem. pp. of aler "to go," which ultimately may be a contraction of L. ambulare "to walk," or a back-formation from L. allatus "having been brought to." Applied c.1400 to "long narrow enclosure for playing at bowls, skittles, etc." The meaning "passage between buildings" is from c.1510; the word also is applied in Amer.Eng. to what in London is called a mews (q.v.). To be up someone's alley "in someone's neighborhood" (lit. or fig.) is from 1931; alley-cat first attested 1904.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
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