cupboard is bare, the

Idioms and Phrases

The desired resources are not available, as in The schools are asking for a budget increase but the cupboard is bare . This metaphoric expression may have come from the nursery rhyme: “Old Mother Hubbard, went to the cupboard, to fetch her poor dog a bone, And when she went there, the cupboard was bare, and so the poor dog had none” (Sarah Catherine Martin, The Comic Adventures of Old Mother Hubbard , 1805).