beam-ends
Americanplural noun
idioms
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on her beam-ends, heeled so far on one side that the deck is practically vertical.
The schooner was blown over on her beam-ends.
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on one's / the beam-ends, in desperate straits, especially financial straits. Also on the beam's ends.
plural noun
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the ends of a vessel's beams
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(of a vessel) heeled over through an angle of 90°
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out of resources; destitute
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desperate
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Etymology
Origin of beam-ends
First recorded in 1765–75
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
In the ruinous days of September 1940, a bomb blasted two of the museum's rooms into reportedly picturesque and possibly symbolic confusion: Hitler lurched on his beam-ends, his head chipped to its core.
From Time Magazine Archive
This was scarcely done, when a gust of wind, exceeding everything of the kind they had ever any conception of, laid the ship on her beam-ends.
From The Rival Crusoes The Ship Wreck also A Voyage to Norway; and The Fisherman's Cottage. by Agnes Strickland
On looking for the brig, I perceived, to my astonishment, that she lay within a mile of us, and had heeled over so much, that she seemed almost on her beam-ends.
From Tales from Blackwood Volume 9 by Various
Everything was reeling about him; the yacht stood nearly upon her beam-ends as she climbed on the waves.
From A Captain of Industry Being the Story of a Civilized Man by Upton Sinclair
In a few minutes the vessel filled and went on her beam-ends.
From Nooks and Corners of the New England Coast by Samuel Adams Drake
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
