Meaning
Near the point of collapse, failure, or death. Of people it suggests extreme exhaustion or the final stages of illness; of machines, businesses, or institutions it means close to breaking down, folding, or going under. Informal and vivid; about illness it can sound blunt, so soften it in sensitive contexts. Regional use: General English.
Origin
A hyperbole drawn from the idea of legs that are about to give way. Grammarist traces it to the early seventeenth-century stage, citing use 'as early as 1599' in the play The Old Law. The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms records that the expression originally meant close to dying, and that John Ray's 1678 English proverb collection transferred it to being bankrupt, after which it soon broadened to the end of one's resources generally. Later citations (Sir Walter Scott in 1824, Robert Louis Stevenson in 1905, the latter of a fire 'on its last legs') show it settling on both people and things, where it remains most at home.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- be on your last legs
- on its last legs
- on my last legs
- on one's last legs
Usage Examples
- After the double shift I was on my last legs, but the overtime pay was worth it.
- The office printer is on its last legs; it jams every third page.
- Analysts say the retail chain has been on its last legs since it lost its downtown lease.