complete shitheap
1
9.9
- noun
- Offensive
- The apartment we rented turned out to be a complete shitheap with leaking pipes and broken windows.
Examples
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This old car is a complete shitheap.
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He bought a complete shitheap at auction, hoping to fix it up one day.
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After the fire, the house was a complete shitheap and had to be demolished.
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They left the house in a complete shitheap condition!
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The abandoned building became a complete shitheap after years of neglect.
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His old car was a complete shitheap, barely able to start.
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After the storm, the backyard was left a complete shitheap of debris and broken furniture.
Synonyms
8
8.9
A cheap, dirty hotel in bad condition
4
9.9
A very old, broken car or run-down place
2
9.9
Something that is very bad and not useful
1
9.9
A poor-quality thing that does not work well
1
9.9
A very dirty, messy pile of trash and broken things
An abandoned house left to fall apart after a disaster
A place that is very dirty and full of trash and bad smells
Antonyms
How Dilapidated
Surface Forms
Morphology
The derogatory noun 'shitheap' transparently combines 'shit' (excrement, strongly negative) + 'heap' (pile) to signal something worthless or disgusting, and 'complete' functions as an intensifier, so a learner who knows the parts can infer a strongly negative evaluation. However, the phrase is coarse, colloquial and metaphorical with a conventionalized meaning ('very dilapidated/ worthless') that may not be fully predictable in nuance or register without exposure, so it is only partially transparent to a B1 learner.
Etymology
Complete shitheap may come from the simple picture of a pile of dung: shit in a heap. That dirty, broken, useless image helps explain why the phrase means 'in very bad condition'.