down-and-out

1. 1.

   a person who is destitute

   “he tried to help the down-and-out”

   Broaderpoor person

1. 1.

   lacking resources (or any prospect of resources)

   Similarunsuccessful

Questions about down-and-out

What does down-and-out mean?

down-and-out means "a person who is destitute". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in down-and-out?

down-and-out has 3 syllables: dow-n-an-d-out. The stress falls on "dow".

Is down-and-out a common word?

down-and-out is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.