bottomless pit
3
6.3
- noun
- Informal
:
pozo sin fondo
- Frankly, it seems to me that we are marching towards that bottomless pit, even if the economy by and large recovers!
Behind the wall of misleading thumbnails and titles is a nearly bottomless pit of content theft and criminality.
- Behind the wall of misleading thumbnails and titles is a nearly bottomless pit of content theft and criminality.
Examples
-
As far as my looks go, I am seething with insecurity, a bottomless pit into which compliments fall for a brief, shining moment, then disappear.
Fiction book (1999) -
This thing's a bottomless pit.
Fiction book (1993) -
Their needs are a bottomless pit.
Fiction book (2002) -
It's a bottomless pit of expenses!
-
It was like a bottomless pit.
-
She discovered that his need was like a bottomless pit.
Fiction book (1990) -
It seems like a bottomless pit.
Academic text (1993) -
Do you think Maine should continue to follow this downward spiral into a bottomless pit?
Blog text (15) -
Of course, there may be some friends who become bottomless pits of need and greed.
Blog text (31) -
Many people believe that the cost of maintaining old buildings is a bottomless pit of expenses.
Synonyms
17
5.5
A thing, like a failing project, that uses a lot of time or money and gives nothing back
6
7.3
A thing like a house or boat that always needs a lot of money for repairs
How Costly
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning is directly inferable from the constituents: 'bottomless' (without a bottom/ endless) + 'pit' (a deep hole) evokes an endless hole that keeps swallowing things, which maps clearly to a situation that consumes resources. This imagery and metaphorical extension are common cross-linguistically (e.g., Spanish 'pozo sin fondo'), so a B1 learner who knows the words would readily understand the expression.
Etymology
Bottomless pit comes from the image of a very deep hole: bottomless (no bottom) and pit (a hole) that keeps swallowing things. So, we call something a 'bottomless pit' when it seems to 'eat up money or energy without end'.