to go through the wringer
- idiom
- Informal
:
pasar por un calvario
- After losing her job and struggling to pay the bills, she felt like she had gone through the wringer.
Examples
-
The company went through the wringer during the economic downturn but managed to survive.
-
After working twelve hours straight, I felt like I had gone through the wringer.
-
She goes through the wringer every time her boss reviews her work.
-
Don't go through the wringer alone!
-
After losing her job, she really went through the wringer.
-
He always thinks that he goes through the wringer when he has too many deadlines to meet.
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The whole team went through the wringer during the final project, but they learned a lot in the process.
Synonyms
15
7.0
To have a very hard and painful time in life
3
8.1
To face many difficult questions or strong criticism
2
6.5
A period when someone has many problems
To experience many hard tests or problems
Antonyms
How Difficult
15
7.0
- Informal
851
2.8
∞
2.0
241
3.7
Surface Forms
Morphology
The expression relies on a metaphor from a wringer (a device that squeezes/presses laundry), so a learner who knows the literal meaning of 'wringer' and the verb phrase 'go through' can infer a sense of being squeezed or harshly treated. However, the specific idiomatic meaning 'to experience a very difficult or stressful situation' requires figurative mapping and knowledge of the idiom (and 'wringer' is relatively low-frequency), so the connection is only partly predictable.
Etymology
Go through the wringer may come from old washing machines that had a wringer, two heavy rollers that squeezed water out of wet clothes. Being pushed through those rollers gives a strong picture of being squeezed and tested, so today the phrase means 'to experience a very difficult or stressful situation'.