Street voices
Hugues
·
United States
"Bottom of the barrel, meaning the worst of the worst. Oh god, this burger is disgusting. Worst burger I've ever had. Eh, let me give it a whirl. Oh man, yeah, you're right, that's bottom of the barrel stuff right there."
What it means
When you say you’re at the bottom of the barrel, you’re admitting the decent options are gone and you’re stuck with the dregs. Gets used for candidates, ideas, bargains, even people, whenever it feels like someone scraped the last scraps out and called it a selection. Not automatically an insult, but it definitely lands as a diss.
Usage examples
"We interviewed five people and the best one still turned up late and forgot his laptop. Bottom of the barrel, honestly, for this hiring round."
"By the time we got to the buffet it was bottom of the barrel, two curled sandwiches and a lonely cocktail sausage."
"Scraping the bottom of the barrel for a fourth striker, the manager called up a lad from the youth team."
Where it comes from
Picture a barrel of wine or apples: the good stuff floats near the top, and by the time you are scraping the bottom you are down to the dregs, the bruised and the spoiled. Scraping the bottom of the barrel means taking the last and worst of what is left.
Editors of this term
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