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Definition of "down-and-out" []

  • Lacking funds, resources, or prospects; destitute. (adjective)
  • Incapacitated; prostrate. (adjective)
  • One who is down-and-out. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Use "down-and-out" in a sentence
  • "A down-and-out waitress sits glumly on her stoop across the street from a gleaming suburb."
  • "Noticing the deck needs to be repaired leads to you making a note about the deck, which gets processed and turns out to be more than a single step, which in turn leads to a creation of a project surrounding the rehabilitation of your down-and-out deck, which in turn swells your Project List by one more and adds to your general feeling that your Project List might crush you."
  • "For me, his random interviews with various down-and-out characters in Cleveland, on sidewalks and in living rooms, while charmingly syncopated in the Jarmusch family style, with intermittent jazz music and grainy shaky filming, did not result in a clear "what is this about"--although Tom insisted that for him, it was exactly the Cleveland he wished to express, "meant to be an imperfect portrait.""
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