the bottom of the barrel
noun phrase
: the lowest possible condition, level, etc.
After the divorce, Tim felt he had reached/hit the bottom of the barrel.
The excessive coverage of the scandal signals that the news media may have finally hit/reached the bottom of the barrel.
Examples of the bottom of the barrel in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
Recently the Republican Party has been scraping the bottom of the barrel for many of its politicians, giving us the worst president in our nation’s history and a majority leader of the Senate who applied the rules for Supreme Court nominees unfairly.
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Letters To The Editor, The Mercury News, 22 Mar. 2024
The West could not match that, having already reached the bottom of the barrel of similar resources.
—Dara Massicot, Foreign Affairs, 8 Mar. 2024
The rest of the album’s collaborators suggest that Kanye is either scraping the bottom of the barrel or calling any rapper on the Billboard charts to see who will show up.
—Matthew Strauss, Pitchfork, 10 Feb. 2024
Letters To The Editor, The Mercury News, 22 Mar. 2024
The West could not match that, having already reached the bottom of the barrel of similar resources.
—Dara Massicot, Foreign Affairs, 8 Mar. 2024
The rest of the album’s collaborators suggest that Kanye is either scraping the bottom of the barrel or calling any rapper on the Billboard charts to see who will show up.
—Matthew Strauss, Pitchfork, 10 Feb. 2024
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'the bottom of the barrel.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Dictionary Entries Near the bottom of the barrel
Cite this Entry
“The bottom of the barrel.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/the%20bottom%20of%20the%20barrel. Accessed 19 Apr. 2024.
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