bad time of it
1
6.1
- idiom
:
mal momento
- He admits that he's had a bad time of it since he lost his job last year.
Examples
-
The lower orders within the trade deficit country have a very bad time of it in general.
Blog text (16) -
Sorry you've had such a bad time of it, but the vast majority of men in this world do not fit into your narrow-minded view.
Blog text (8) -
Couple of weeks ago, she saw I was having a bad time of it... asked me if I wanted to talk.
-
My dear father, if we men married the women we deserved... we should have a very bad time of it.
-
We can earn our bread somehow, even if we have a bad time of it.
Fiction book (1996) -
He'd had a bad time of it as a youth, I understand, though he never spoke of it.
Fiction book (2000) -
I've given you a bad time of it, haven't I?
-
Rosie tells me he's had a bad time of it lately.
Fiction book (1993) -
I, among millions of other Americans, have had a very bad time of it due to our archaic and Darwinian health system (if you don't have a job with healthcare, **** you).
Blog text (31) -
The most pessimistic of the doomsayers are already predicting that the ag belt and ag banks will be having a bad time of it over the next few years.
Academic text (1999)
Synonyms
241
3.7
Find something difficult to do
200
2.6
Have problems because of what you do
15
7.0
To have a very hard and painful time in life
2
6.5
A period when someone has many problems
A period when someone has many problems and feels unhappy
Find it very difficult to do something
A period when someone has many problems
Antonyms
How Difficult
Surface Forms
Morphology
The overall sense ('to experience difficulty or an unpleasant time') is directly derivable from combining 'bad' (negative) with 'time' (a period or experience); the final particle 'of it' is a light syntactic addition that does not obscure the compositional meaning. This construction mirrors common patterns like 'have a bad time' and is cross-linguistically predictable, so a B1 learner who knows the constituent words would normally infer the meaning.
Etymology
Bad time of it may come from old speech where a 'time of it' meant a period of life, and if that period was bad you 'had a bad time of it. So today bad time of it means 'to have a hard time' or 'to suffer'.