down-at-the-heels

[ doun-uht-thuh-heelz ]

adjective

1. having a shabby, run-down appearance; seedy:

   He is rapidly becoming a down-at-the-heels drifter and a drunk.

Word History and Origins

Origin of down-at-the-heels¹

First recorded in 1695–1705

Example Sentences

Dee, 52, bought the down-at-the-heels house from the city in 2013 for $16,650.

From Seattle Times

That film, with screenplay by Mr. Bogdanovich and Mr. McMurtry, centers on life and love in a down-at-the-heels town in the early 1950s.

From New York Times

Boston has changed radically since its down-at-the-heels days of the 1970s, when the city found itself in the national spotlight over the turmoil brought on by school desegregation, and of the late 1980s, when the case of Charles Stuart again inflamed simmering racial tensions.

From Seattle Times

In chatty, gimlet-eyed prose, she explores a certain glamorous but down-at-the-heels existence that SoCal’s house-poor but friend-rich know all too well.

From Los Angeles Times

Names and jargon that were once the province of obsessive day traders have become the subject of small talk — and the source of major angst — in the last few days as a series of down-at-the-heels stocks have rocketed to previously unimaginable heights.

From Los Angeles Times