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Down the drain

Idiomatic Phrase
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

Indicates that effort, resources, or opportunities have been squandered, wasted, or irretrievably lost, like water disappearing into a drain, often with a sense of finality.

Detailed Definition
Down the drain means wasted, lost, or ruined, especially after effort, money, time, hope, or opportunity has been squandered. In poetry, the idiom can support images of disappearance, sewage, rainwater, tears, or urban flow. It is useful in poems of regret, economic hardship, failed love, environmental loss, or social waste. The phrase makes abstraction physical: what mattered is imagined as slipping away into a dark, unreachable system. It can sound comic, bitter, or deeply mournful depending on tone.
Example
Example in poetry:
A lament might say years of labour went down the drain in a single flood; In a love poem, trust can go down the drain after one betrayal; The phrase suits poems about waste, loss, and ruined effort; A satirical poet could use it for public money squandered on vanity.
Additional Notes
Down the drain means wasted, lost, or squandered. The image is domestic and urban: water, money, time, effort, or hope disappears into plumbing. In poetry it can make abstract loss visible and ordinary. It suits poems about failed labour, addiction, environmental waste, broken promises, and economic hardship. Students should note the downward motion and sense of irretrievability.
Also Known As
wasted
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