Dictionary

down on one's luck en · ADJ

Pronunciation

• (Australia) audio

Meanings

1. (idiomatic) Unlucky or undergoing a period of bad luck, especially with respect to financial matters.
   • If Crabtree is down on his luck he will most likely be willing to do anything for money. 1915, Edward Stratemeyer, chapter 28, in The Rover Boys in Business:
   • He is down on his luck. He asked me to ask you to ask somebody named Boylan, a billsticker, to give him a job as a sandwichman. , Episode 16
   • Willie "tries to resist"—being, as the synopsis explains, "an attractive and intelligent girl who is simply down on her luck in the ruins of postwar Germany." 1954 April 19, “The New Pictures”, in Time:
   • I'm sorry to hear you are down on your luck ; 1895, Marie Corelli, The Sorrows of Satan: or The Strange Experience of One Geoffrey Tempest, Millionaire […], 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: J[oshua] B[allinger] Lippincott Company, published 1896, →OCLC, page 14:
   • When you're down on your luck (oh-oh-oh) / Don′t you know? you gotta pass the buck (get it off me) 1978, Love Committee, “Pass The Buck”, in Law & Order:
   • Pitcher Kyle Lohse, 29, who has had unsuccessful stints with the Minnesota Twins, Cincinnati Reds and Philadelphia Phillies, seems to have found a home with the St. Louis Cardinals, a team that has a knack for turning around pitchers down on their luck. 2008 July 1, Mel Antonen, “Rays, A's using same formula for success”, in USA Today, retrieved 03 Nov 2008:

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