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Balls to the wall

adv, slang

Definitions

Adverb
  1. 1
    With maximum effort or commitment. US, idiomatic, not-comparable, slang

    "I told the staff...the day before the hurricane struck that I expected them to cut every piece of red tape, do everything they could, that it was balls to the wall, that I didn't want to hear anybody say that we couldn't do anything—to do everything they humanly could to respond."

  2. 2
    Full throttle; (at) maximum speed. US, idiomatic, not-comparable, slang

Etymology

First attested in the 1960s in the context of aviation, in reference to ball-shaped grips on an aircraft's engine controls (typically throttle, prop pitch and fuel mixture). Pushing these "balls to the wall" would put the aircraft at maximum thrust. Analogous to pedal to the metal. Not related to the term balls-out, which refers to a ball governor on a steam engine. Neither balls-out nor balls to the wall is connected with the vulgar sense of balls (“testicles”) except via folk etymology.

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