aisle

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cross the aisle

1. Of politicians, to unite or cooperate—especially through voting—with an opposing political party or members thereof, so as to achieve some political goal or purpose. Primarily heard in US, South Africa. With just enough Republicans crossing the aisle, the Democrats were able to pass the bill through both the Senate and the House of Representatives. If reform of any kind is going to come about in this lifetime, it will take some strong-willed individuals willing to cross the aisle.

2. Of parliamentary members, to leave one's current political party and join another, such that one's legislative seat is physically moved to the new party's location in parliament. Primarily heard in UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand. Following the prime minister's controversial tax bill, several members of his party crossed the aisle to the Labour Party.

laughing in the aisles

Laughing uproariously or hysterically. (Used especially in the phrase "have someone laughing in the aisles.") Your jokes are perfect for your speech tonight. You'll have them laughing in the aisles! I'm telling you, Mark's boyfriend is hilarious! You're going to be laughing in the aisles when you meet him.

have (someone) laughing in the aisles

To cause someone to laugh uproariously or hysterically. Your jokes are perfect for your speech tonight. You'll have them laughing in the aisles! I'm telling you, Mark's boyfriend is hilarious! He had me laughing in the aisles when I met him.

walk down the aisle

To get married. I still can't believe that Nora and Scott walked down the aisle—I never thought I'd see those two get married!

have (one) rolling in the aisles

To cause an audience to laugh uproariously or hysterically. Primarily heard in UK, Australia. Your jokes are perfect for your speech tonight. You'll have them rolling in the aisles!

rolling in the aisles

Laughing uproariously or hysterically. Your jokes are perfect for your speech tonight. You'll have them rolling in the aisles!

See also: aisle, roll

*rolling in the aisles

Fig. [of an audience] wild with laughter. (*Typically: get them ~; have them ~; leave them ~.) DI have the best jokes you've ever heard. I'll have them rolling in the aisles. What a great performance. We had them rolling in the aisles.

See also: aisle, roll

roll in the aisles

Laugh very hard, as in The comedian's new book had them rolling in the aisles. This hyperbolic idiom alludes to a performance that causes an audience to laugh so hard that they might well roll about in the theater's aisles. [First half of 1900s]

See also: aisle, roll

be rolling in the aisles

If people in an audience are rolling in the aisles, they are laughing a lot at something. They loved him — they were rolling in the aisles. Note: You can also say that you have an audience rolling in the aisles. It's all good knockabout stuff that has them rolling in the aisles. His shows still have them rolling in the aisles. Note: The aisles in a theatre or cinema are the gaps between the blocks of seats.

See also: aisle, roll

References in classic literature ?

Pete aggressively walked up a side aisle and took seats with Maggie at a table beneath the balcony.

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The women at the boards near to her scrambled, first, to the hot iron to save the cloth, and then to her, while the forewoman hurried belligerently down the aisle.

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A natural fillip followed, the beetle went floundering into the aisle and lit on its back, and the hurt finger went into the boy's mouth.

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Suddenly Weena, deserted in the central aisle, began to whimper.

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After she had made a curtsey at the threshold, she would walk up the aisle between the double lines of chairs, open Madame Aubain's pew, sit down and look around.

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The ceremony was to be solemnized according to the Episcopalian forms, and in open church, with a degree of publicity that attracted many spectators, who occupied the front seats of the galleries, and the pews near the altar and along the broad aisle.

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Hard by, the aisle of the church called the d'Urberville Aisle looked on imperturbably.

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In twos we entered the chamber and marched down the broad Aisle of Hope, as it is called, to the platform in the centre of the hall.

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But what riveted the girl's attention even more than the fabulous treasure of decorations were the files of gorgeously harnessed warriors who sat their thoats in grim silence and immobility on either side of the central aisle, rank after rank of them to the farther walls, and as the party passed between them she could not note so much as the flicker of an eyelid, or the twitching of a thoat's ear.

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He saw the young tough lurching down that aisle and wondered if he would remove the stiff-rim which never yet had he seen him without.

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They entered the hall from the rear, still keeping the casual formation of the group, and moved slowly up a side aisle.

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SEEING that his audiences were becoming smaller every Sunday, a Minister of the Gospel broke off in the midst of a sermon, descended the pulpit stairs, and walked on his hands down the central aisle of the church.

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But as he walked up the long aisle to the chapel where the bishops were gathered, John of Gaunt marched by his side, and Lord Percy, Earl Marshal of England, cleared a way for him through the throng of people that filled the church.

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That's Gilbert Blythe sitting right across the aisle from you, Anne.

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When we got the organ up at the Glen church old Elder Richards bounced up from his seat the minute the organist began to play and scuttled down the aisle and out of the church at the rate of no-man's-business.