ON ALL FOURS

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does on all fours mean? 

• ON ALL FOURS (adverb)
  The adverb ON ALL FOURS has 1 sense:

1. on hands and knees

  Familiarity information: ON ALL FOURS used as an adverb is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• ON ALL FOURS (adverb)

Sense 1

Meaning:

On hands and knees

Context example:

he got down on all fours to play with his grandson

 Context examples 

It was of another man, who did not walk, but who dragged himself on all fours.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

As I scrambled out on all fours, I passed over the body of Thomas Mugridge, who lay in a groaning heap.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

In the meantime, there suddenly fell such a violent shower of hail, that I was immediately by the force of it, struck to the ground: and when I was down, the hailstones gave me such cruel bangs all over the body, as if I had been pelted with tennis-balls; however, I made a shift to creep on all fours, and shelter myself, by lying flat on my face, on the lee-side of a border of lemon-thyme, but so bruised from head to foot, that I could not go abroad in ten days.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

What it was, whether beast or human being, one could not, at first sight, tell: it grovelled, seemingly, on all fours; it snatched and growled like some strange wild animal: but it was covered with clothing, and a quantity of dark, grizzled hair, wild as a mane, hid its head and face.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

The white rock, visible enough above the brush, was still some eighth of a mile further down the spit, and it took me a goodish while to get up with it, crawling, often on all fours, among the scrub.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

The last hundred feet to the graves was up a steep slope, and this they took on all fours, like sled-dogs, making legs of their arms and thrusting their hands into the snow.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

Crawling on all fours, I made steadily but slowly towards them, till at last, raising my head to an aperture among the leaves, I could see clear down into a little green dell beside the marsh, and closely set about with trees, where Long John Silver and another of the crew stood face to face in conversation.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)