Idiom
ridden hard and put away wet
Meaning
Mistreated; not properly cared for.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Examples
“That old car looks like it was ridden hard and put away wet.”
“You look ridden hard and put away wet after that long flight.”
“He bought a used laptop that had clearly been ridden hard and put away wet, so it crashed constantly.”
“After working three double shifts in a row, the nurse looked like she had been ridden hard and put away wet.”
“The rental tools were ridden hard and put away wet, so they were covered in rust and barely functioned.”
“The library books were returned looking like they had been ridden hard and put away wet, with torn pages and coffee stains on every cover.”
“The abandoned estate appeared as if it had been ridden hard and put away wet, with its once-grand architecture now crumbling from years of total neglect.”
Examples
simple
“That old car looks like it was ridden hard and put away wet.”
“You look ridden hard and put away wet after that long flight.”
contextual
“He bought a used laptop that had clearly been ridden hard and put away wet, so it crashed constantly.”
“After working three double shifts in a row, the nurse looked like she had been ridden hard and put away wet.”
“The rental tools were ridden hard and put away wet, so they were covered in rust and barely functioned.”
“The library books were returned looking like they had been ridden hard and put away wet, with torn pages and coffee stains on every cover.”
complex
“The abandoned estate appeared as if it had been ridden hard and put away wet, with its once-grand architecture now crumbling from years of total neglect.”
Origin
The term originates from the equestrian error of stabling a horse while it remains coated in sweat from exertion. Proper stable management requires the animal to be cooled, brushed, and dried; neglecting this process by securing the horse while still wet can lead to stiffness or illness. The idiom serves as a linguistic record of this specific failure in grooming.
Key words
Related idioms
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