Meaning
In a desperate position with no resources left, usually money, options, or time running out. The image is a ship heeled so far over that its beams, the horizontal timbers running across the hull, are nearly vertical with their ends at the water, on the edge of capsizing. Today it mostly describes financial hardship or acute difficulty rather than literal sailing danger. Informal and slightly old-fashioned in British English; nearly always in the fixed form on one's beam-ends and most often about money. Avoid using it for mere difficulty rather than genuine extremity. Regional use: Chiefly British English.
Origin
Beams are the transverse timbers supporting a ship's deck; a vessel rolled until its beam-ends touch the water is close to capsizing, giving sailors a vivid word for extremity. The Phrase Finder traces the literal use to 1773, when The Gentleman's Magazine reported that a gust 'laid her upon her beam-ends', and the figurative use to Captain Marryat's novel The King's Own (1830), where the first lieutenant is described as on his beam-ends with the rheumatiz. The metaphor was thus established in nautical writing by the early nineteenth century and drifted into general English for destitution and distress, where it has stayed busiest in British usage.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- laid on her beam-ends
- on her beam-ends
- on one's beam-ends
Usage Examples
- After the factory closed, the whole town was on its beam-ends, and even the bakery stopped taking credit.
- We were on our beam-ends by March, with two clients left and barely enough cash to cover the office rent.
- The squall laid the yacht over on her beam-ends and the crew battled for an hour before she righted.