down at heel

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English

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Adjective

down at heel (comparative more down at heel, superlative most down at heel)

  1. (literally, of footwear) In poor condition, especially due to having worn heels; worn-out, shabby.
  2. (idiomatic, by extension) Shabbily dressed, slovenly; impoverished; shabby, dilapidated.
    • 1916, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, “John”, in Twilight in Italy, London: Duckworth and Co. , →OCLC, pages 211–212:
      He was a queer shoot, again, in his unkempt longish hair and slovenly clothes, a sort of very vulgar down-at-heel American in appearance.
    • 1932, Delos W. Lovelace, King Kong, published 1965, page 1:
      For the likes of her, the down-at-heels support of Hoboken pier was plenty good enough.
    • 2003, Lynda Lee-Potter, "Sex-crazed fans . . .," Daily Mail (UK), 27 Dec. (retrieved 20 Jan. 2010):
      Last year, he was down at heel, homeless and had an erratic relationship with his family.
    • 2015 March 31, Margalit Fox, “Gary Dahl, Inventor of the Pet Rock, Dies at 78”, in The New York Times‎, →ISSN:
      A down-at-the-heels advertising copywriter when he hit on the idea, he originally meant it as a joke.
    • 2020, Noreena Hertz, The Lonely Century, Hodder & Stoughton, →ISBN:
      Researchers analysed 500 interviews with people in right-wing strongholds in France and Germany, places such as Gelsenkirchen-Ost, a down-at-heel suburb north-east of Essen blighted with high levels of unemployment and where anti-immigrant party Alternativ für Deutschland (AfD) garnered nearly a third of the vote in the 2017 elections […]

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