Meaning
Completely penniless; having no money at all. Informal, with 'flat' intensifying 'broke' in the sense 'utterly, completely'. Usually describes a temporary state rather than chronic poverty, and is standard in both American and British usage. Informal; emphasizes the totality of being without money, usually with temporary rather than desperate connotations. Regional use: General English (American origin).
Origin
'Broke' itself, the past participle of 'break' used adjectivally for a person without money, is old: Merriam-Webster dates it to 1662, and the imagery is generally taken from a merchant or banker financially 'broken'. The intensified 'flat broke' is an Americanism of the mid-19th century: Green's Dictionary of Slang gives an earliest citation of 1855 from the California journals of Alfred Doten, followed by the Comstock writer Dan DeQuille in 1861 and Mark Twain's 'Huckleberry Finn' (1884), with British newspaper citations from 1865 onward. Schele de Vere's 1872 glossary of Americanisms glossed the phrase as equivalent to 'dead broke', from the idea of being so broken as to lie flat.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- dead broke
- stone broke
- stony broke
Usage Examples
- After the transmission failed, Ivan was flat broke and hitched rides to work.
- The startup burned through its funding and finished the year flat broke.
- I'd love to join the trip, but I'm flat broke until payday.