Language: en
Meaning: (literally,offootwear)In poor condition, especially due to having worn heels;worn-out,shabby.1836March –1837October,Charles Dickens, chapter 41, inThe Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, London:Chapman and Hall,[…], published1837,→OCLC:A pair of Oxford-mixture trousers[…]fell in a series of not the most graceful folds over a pair of shoes sufficientlydown at heelto display a pair of very soiled white stockings.; (idiomatic,by extension)Shabbilydressed,slovenly;impoverished;shabby,dilapidated.Antonym:well-heeled1916,D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, “John”, inTwilight in Italy, London:Duckworth and Co.[…],→OCLC,pages211–212:He was a queer shoot, again, in his unkempt longish hair and slovenly clothes, a sort of very vulgardown-at-heelAmerican in appearance.1932,Delos W. Lovelace,King Kong, published1965, page 1:For the likes of her, thedown-at-heelssupport of Hoboken pier was plenty good enough.2003, Lynda Lee-Potter, "Sex-crazed fans . . .,"Daily Mail(UK), 27 Dec. (retrieved 20 Jan. 2010):Last year, he wasdown at heel, homeless and had an erratic relationship with his family.2015March 31, Margalit Fox, “Gary Dahl, Inventor of the Pet Rock, Dies at 78”, inThe New York Times[1],→ISSN:Adown-at-the-heelsadvertising copywriter when he hit on the idea, he originally meant it as a joke.2020,Noreena Hertz,The Lonely Century, Hodder & Stoughton,→ISBN:Researchers analysed 500 interviews with people in right-wing strongholds in France and Germany, places such as Gelsenkirchen-Ost, adown-at-heelsuburb north-east of Essen blighted with high levels of unemployment and where anti-immigrant party Alternativ für Deutschland (AfD) garnered nearly a third of the vote in the 2017 elections[…]
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