in the gutter

Idioms and Phrases

Appropriate to or from a squalid, degraded condition. For example, The language in that book belongs in the gutter . An antonym, out of the gutter , means “away from vulgarity or sordidness,” as in That joke was quite innocent; get your mind out of the gutter . This idiom uses gutter in the sense of “a conduit for filthy waste.” [Mid-1800s]