beam-ends

American  

[beem-endz] / ˈbimˌɛndz /

plural noun

1. Nautical. the ends of the transverse deck beams of a vessel.

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idioms

1. 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.

2. on one's / the beam-ends, in desperate straits, especially financial straits. Also on the beam's ends.

beam-ends British  

plural noun

1. the ends of a vessel's beams

2. (of a vessel) heeled over through an angle of 90°

3. 1. out of resources; destitute

   2. desperate

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Etymology

Origin of beam-ends

First recorded in 1765–75

Example Sentences

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

She was down on her beam-ends, with the sea breaking over her.

From The Secret of the Reef by Bindloss, Harold

But the Dart was already lying on her beam-ends, heaving, groaning and quivering throughout every timber, in the fierce embrace of the tremendous blast!

From The Portland Sketch Book by Various

I had been out of work for months, the abolition of my post in Jamaica having thrown me on my beam-ends, and I was overjoyed at so much wealth poured suddenly in upon me.

From My First Book: the experiences of Walter Besant, James Payn, W. Clark Russell, Grant Allen, Hall Caine, George R. Sims, Rudyard Kipling, A. Conan Doyle, M.E. Braddon, F.W. Robinson, H. Rider Haggard, R.M. Ballantyne, I. Zangwill, Morley Roberts, David Christie Murray, Marie Corelli, Jerome K. Jerome, John Strange Winter, Bret Harte, "Q.", Robert Buchanan, Robert Louis Stevenson, with an introduction by Jerome K. Jerome. by Various

The gigantic stems of the sapucaya, rising on both sides above the beam-ends of the galatea, looked like the supporters of a graving-dock.

From Afloat in the Forest A Voyage among the Tree-Tops by Reid, Mayne