at the worst
4
3.9
- idiom
:
en el peor de los casos
- At the worst possible moments, they flew around him on curves as if they could not stand crawling another minute.
- at the worst possible
- at the worst time
- at the worst moment
Because often a crisis is all the worst possible stuff happening at the worst possible moment.
- Because often a crisis is all the worst possible stuff happening at the worst possible moment.
- I happen to be at the worst place possible.
- She is in the worst place at the worst time and Simon has no control and just sinks his teeth into Maureen quote.
- We are at at the worst of of inequality.
- My dad would literally sit there at his desk & pamphlets with his autograph because at the worst case scenario, here is an autograph.
- Somebody dies at the worst, at the longest case, sure, or earlier.
- You can reverse these conditions within a matter of weeks up to a matter of a few months at the worst case scenario.
Examples
-
At the worst, he can only sue us.
-
Full integration is gonna cost the services billions at the worst possible time—when Congress is already swinging the axe.
Fiction book (1997) -
And they will pop up at the worst possible times.
-
And at the worst possible time for me.
-
And they often came at the worst times.
Fiction book (1997) -
Instead we're burdened with the worst possible Prime Minister at the worst possible time.
-
I remember they always took school photos at the worst times (back in the day).
Blog text (22) -
At the worst, stocks plunged to show a loss of 56.8% from the 2007 highs.
Blog text (31) -
The chaotic liquidation of foreign exchange reserves made credit scarce and put upward pressure on interest rates at the worst possible time, making it hard for firms to finance not only international transactions but also domestic investment.
Academic text (2012) -
A key investor's pulled out at the worst possible time, just before the big launch.
Synonyms
35
3.6
If things go as badly as possible, expect the most serious result
Antonyms
How Bad
4
3.9
123
3.5
Surface Forms
Morphology
at + the + worst
The phrase 'at the worst' is compositionally built from 'at' (marking circumstance/location) plus 'the worst' (the superlative noun phrase meaning the worst case), so its sense 'in the worst-case scenario' is directly inferable from the parts. This is a regular, cross-linguistically common compositional pattern and therefore should be immediately understandable to a B1 learner who knows the constituent words.
Etymology
The phrase at the worst comes from the simple picture of looking at all possible results and pointing to the worst one. So it means 'in the worst possible case'.