<P> "To the nines" is an English idiom meaning "to perfection" or "to the highest degree" or to dress "buoyantly and high class". In modern English usage, the phrase most commonly appears as "dressed to the nines" or "dressed up to the nines". </P> <P> The phrase is said to be Scots in origin . The earliest written example of the phrase is from the 1719 Epistle to Ramsay by the Scottish poet William Hamilton: </P> <P> The bonny Lines therein thou sent me, How to the nines they did content me . </P> <P> Robert Burns' "Poem on Pastoral Poetry", published posthumously in 1800, also uses the phrase: </P>

Where does dressed up to the nines come from