scrape the bottom of the barrel
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.32 in modern English
45
Scrabble Score
26
Letters
3
Syllables
13
Unique Chars
Meaning
verb
To settle for a poor option due to a lack or unavailability of anything more favorable.
Informal
Example Sentences
- "They must really have been scraping the bottom of the barrel if they couldn't find a better design than that."
- "The bottom of the barrel was scraped on August 22 when Shrewsbury had to produce Taunton 2-6-0 No. 6312 to work the 8.10 p.m. from Paddington between Wolverhampton and Shrewsbury; the stranger was in trouble in the early hours of the next morning at Hollinswood, but managed to reach Shrewsbury."
- "We have so few ships that are mission—ready, they are scraping the bottom of the barrel. We are to the point where three damaged ships are being stripped to make one flyable ship."
Etymology
Derived from the historical practice in the early European history of storing food in barrels; when food supplies ran low, only what was on the very bottom of the barrel remained, and had to be removed by scraping. Oil in a barrel has different fractions with a different weight. The heavier fractions like asphaltum sink to the bottom of the barrel and can be difficult to scrape from the bottom.