in the gutter

in the gutter

slang In a state of total waste, failure, or ruination. My father's company is now going to be in the gutter because of the way the incompetent new CEO is running things. My dad once threw our entire life savings in the gutter betting on horses one weekend. The director's reputation is going to be in the gutter once these allegations come to light.See also: gutter

*in the gutter

Fig. [of a person] in a low state; poor and homeless. (*Typically: be ~; fall [into] ~; put some-one [into] ~.) You had better straighten out your life, or you'll end in the gutter. His bad habits put him into the gutter.See also: gutter

in the gutter

Appropriate to or from a squalid, degraded condition. For example, The language in that book belongs in the gutter. An antonym, out of the gutter, means "away from vulgarity or sordidness," as in That joke was quite innocent; get your mind out of the gutter. This idiom uses gutter in the sense of "a conduit for filthy waste." [Mid-1800s] See also: gutter