![]() The term cloud nine is a metaphor for being on top of the world, going to heaven, and feeling happy. This is why it’s called cloud 9 because the clouds are so high up in the sky that they rise above all of the negative things that happen on earth like war, poverty, disease, and crime. It is a place where blissfulness reigns supreme. It can be used when talking about how you felt after your team won the game or when your crush finally agreed to go out with you.Ĭloud 9, the state of happiness and joy, is often associated with heaven. ![]() The phrase “cloud 9” has become common parlance when referring to someone feeling happy or euphoric. If you want to know what cloud nine means, keep reading! With examples of this experience in almost everyday life, the phrase’s origins may surprise you. The term has been around for decades, but many people still don’t know what cloud nine means or where it came from.Īs revealed in this article, many people use mysterious expressions to describe intense happiness and euphoria. The earliest example with the ‘obscure’ meaning dates back to 1651, but look at this example from 1956: ‘Oh, she’s off on Cloud Seven – doesn’t even know we exist.’ This one clearly uses the Flavells’ dream-like meaning (as in another related phrase, ‘he’s got his head in the clouds’, meaning daydreaming).īut then look at this example from a 1960 dictionary of American slang: ‘ Cloud seven, on, completely happy, perfectly satisfied in a euphoric state.’ This brings us back to the meaning we set out to research.Cloud 9 is the new age buzzword given to any experience that makes you feel like floating on air. The OED merges its entry for ‘on cloud seven or nine’ with that for ‘in the clouds’, meaning ‘obscure, mystical fanciful, unreal … (generally combining the notions of obscurity and elevation)’. This caught my eye because it ties in with some of the early examples given in the Oxford English Dictionary (if you have a UK library card, you may be able to log in to the OED online should you want to see more). The Flavells also acknowledge the US Weather Bureau theory and that the height of cumulonimbus is ‘an apt metaphor for being on top of the world, with hints of being in a dream-like, floating state’. There was also an American radio programme in the 1950s called Johnny Dollar, in which a character was frequently knocked unconscious and went to cloud nine, where he recovered (the Flavells credit this with fixing the number nine in the phrase, as does Albert Jack in Red Herrings and White Elephants). They suggest that it was popularised by jazz singers looking for a way of expressing a feeling of being ‘high’ (whether emotionally, as in the ‘happy’ meaning, or one caused by drink or drugs). They say that versions of the phrase first appeared in the 1930s (‘on cloud eight’) and referred to drunkenness. Linda and Roger Flavell in their Dictionary of Idioms and their Origins say there’s ‘a good deal of uncertainty’ about the origin. She says it was the US Weather Bureau’s classification in the 20th century, and that each category of clouds was further subdivided into nine types of clouds – of which the ninth was the highest. Judy Parkinson in Spilling the Beans on the Cat’s Pyjamas gives more detail. And apparently an older version of the saying was ‘on cloud seven’. Very happy, as in: ‘I passed my exam – yippee! I’m on cloud nine!’ Where did it come from?Īpparently the phrase comes from an old system of classifying clouds.įrom the Horse’s Mouth, Oxford’s dictionary of idioms, says it was a 10-part classification so nine was very high.
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