noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   A barrow from which apples and other fruit were formerly sold in the street
2. 2
   A planned situation.
3. 3
   a handcart from which apples and other fruit are sold in the street wordnet
4. 4
   the planning that is disrupted when someone ‘upsets the applecart’ wordnet

Etymology

Etymology 1

From apple + cart.

Etymology 2

Back-formation from upset the applecart.

Related phrases

upset someone's applecartupset the applecart

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.