to had my chips
- idiom
- Slang
:
estar en un aprieto
- After that embarrassing interview, I realized I really had my chips and wouldn't get the job.
Examples
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When his plan failed, he knew he'd had his chips.
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I really had my chips when I lost my job.
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After that embarrassing interview, I really had my chips.
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She felt she had her chips after missing the final exam.
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After the accident, he felt like he had his chips.
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She felt like she had her chips when she missed the final exam and couldn't retake it.
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When his plan failed, he understood he had had his chips and there was nothing left to do.
Synonyms
43
4.1
Not successful when you try to get something you want
1
9.9
In a situation with no choice and no help to fix a problem
To have no chance or choice left
Be in serious trouble with no way to get out
Antonyms
How Hopeless
Surface Forms
Morphology
The literal constituents ('have/my/chips') denote possession of physical chips or tokens, so a B1 learner would most likely interpret this as literal possession. The idiomatic sense 'to be in a hopeless situation / out of luck' is not derivable from those meanings and appears language-specific and unpredictable, so learners who know the words but not the idiom would not infer the intended meaning.
Etymology
Had my chips may come from gambling. At a game, if you lose all your chips you can't play and have no chance left, so the phrase means 'to be out of luck'.