bucket of rust
- noun
- Informal
:
carro viejo
- My first car was a real bucket of rust, but I loved it anyway.
Examples
-
That old truck sitting in the field is nothing more than a bucket of rust.
-
My grandfather's truck is just a bucket of rust now.
-
After decades of neglect, the once-proud locomotive became just a bucket of rust.
-
That old car is a real bucket of rust!
-
After decades of neglect, the once-proud locomotive became just a bucket of rust.
-
My first car was a real bucket of rust, but I loved it anyway.
-
That old truck sitting in the field is nothing more than a bucket of rust.
Synonyms
43
7.0
An old car that does not work well and is in bad shape
3
8.1
A vehicle that is old, noisy and often breaks down
1
9.2
A worn-out thing like a car or bike that is not worth much
Antonyms
Surface Forms
Morphology
bucket + of + rust
The noun 'rust' makes the core meaning (very rusty) easily inferable to a learner who knows the constituents, but the use of 'bucket' is a colloquial, metaphorical vehicle for that meaning rather than a literal container. The phrase therefore relies on a conventionalized metaphor (calling an object a 'bucket of rust') that is partly predictable from its parts but may require some exposure to the idiomatic usage.
Etymology
Bucket of rust paints a simple picture: a metal bucket left outside that becomes covered in flaky red rust and looks useless. People used that image to describe old cars or machines as 'very old' or 'in poor condition', so the phrase now means something is worn out and not useful.