down at heel
1
8.2
- idiom
- UK
:
desgastado
- The old theater had become a down at heel venue, with peeling paint and broken seats.
Examples
-
His clothes were secondhand and grand, befitting a down-at-heel hotelier between postings.
Fiction book (1995) -
If you find out it's anything more than a down-at-heel Gloucestershire squire, you can have my services for nothing.
-
While you're spending years on your history PhD, just remember the cute girl in the coffee shop has an upper second in English, and the guy who owns that slightly down-at-heel laundromat around the corner and a couple more in the next suburb is a millionaire with three new cars on his forecourt.
Blog text (26) -
After years of neglect, the park was looking down at heel, with overgrown weeds and rusted playground equipment.
-
His down at heel appearance made it clear he had fallen on hard times.
Synonyms
4
7.7
Poor and without a home or money
3
7.9
Very poor and without money, a job, or a home
1
6.7
An old building in very bad condition because no one repaired it
Being very short of money and struggling to pay for things
Antonyms
How Shabby
Surface Forms
Morphology
down + at + heel
The phrase originally refers to shoes worn 'down at the heel', so there is a detectable link between the literal constituents (worn heel) and the extended meaning 'shabby or neglected'. However, the construction is somewhat idiomatic and relies on cultural knowledge (worn heels signal poverty/shabbiness), so a B1 learner who knows the words may not reliably infer the full meaning without prior exposure.
Etymology
Down at heel may come from the simple picture of worn shoes: the heel gets worn down with heavy use, and tired shoes showed a person had little money or care. So down at heel now describes someone or somewhere that looks 'shabby' or 'neglected'.