Idiom
scrape the bottom of the barrel
Meaning
To settle for a poor option due to a lack or unavailability of anything more favorable.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Examples
“We are scraping the bottom of the barrel for new ideas.”
“After all the good candidates were hired, the company had to scrape the bottom of the barrel to fill the remaining positions.”
“Faced with a dwindling supply of resources, the explorers realized they were scraping the bottom of the barrel and would soon need to find a new way to survive.”
Examples
simple
“We are scraping the bottom of the barrel for new ideas.”
contextual
“After all the good candidates were hired, the company had to scrape the bottom of the barrel to fill the remaining positions.”
complex
“Faced with a dwindling supply of resources, the explorers realized they were scraping the bottom of the barrel and would soon need to find a new way to survive.”
Origin
Derived from the historical practice in early European history of storing food supplies in wooden barrels. When the contents ran low, the final remnants had to be physically removed by scraping the floor of the vessel. It was a task reserved for the end of the supply, performed when one had exhausted the more accessible portions.
In the case of oil storage, the heavier fractions of the liquid, such as asphaltum, would sink to the base due to their weight. This left a thick, sediment-heavy layer that was notoriously difficult to scrape from the bottom of the barrel. One began the season with the lighter oils and ended it by contending with the sludge.
Key words
Related idioms
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