to lose one's shirt
3
7.3
- idiom
- Informal
:
perder todo el dinero
- When the stock market crashed, many investors lost their shirts overnight.
Examples
-
At least you won't lose your shirt on the next picture too.
-
If you keep gambling like that, you're sure to lose your shirt soon.
-
I could lose my shirt.
-
- You might still lose your shirt.
-
If you ever lose your shirt, I'd be hurt
-
He lost his shirt last year.
Fiction book (1993) -
They just got back from Las Vegas, and they lost their shirt.
-
I lost my shirt.
-
After investing heavily in that risky startup, I ended up losing my shirt.
Synonyms
4
3.5
Spend money on things you do not need
2
7.7
To lose a lot of money over time
To lose a lot of money over a long time
How Costly
73
3.5
- Informal
3
7.3
Surface Forms
Morphology
The sense 'to lose all or most of your money' is idiomatic and cannot be derived from the literal meanings of 'lose' and 'shirt' — a B1 learner who knows the constituent words would likely interpret it as losing an item of clothing. The possessive 'one's' and the clothing noun do not transparently signal financial loss, so prior exposure or cultural knowledge is required to understand the idiomatic meaning.
Etymology
The idiom lose one's shirt may come from old gambling stories where someone lost so much money they had to give up their clothes, even their shirt. So, saying lose one's shirt means 'to lose all or most of your money'.