Word.ws English Dictionary

broken-down valises

broken-down valises is the plural of broken-down valise.

Meaning of broken-down valise

Noun

broken-down valise (plural broken-down valises)

  1. (US, slang, Mafia) A person who has fallen on hard times; a has-been.
    • "In the football business there are so many sleazy bums — broken-down valises, I call them — who don't have two quarters to rub together," Bloom said.1987 June 21, Bill Brubaker, “The Rise and Gall of Secret Agents Walters and Bloom”, in Washington Post, Washington, DC
  2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see broken down, valise.
    • Wedged into the rumble seat was my broken-down valise with everything I possessed in the world.1980, E. L. Doctorow, Loon Lake, New York: Random House, page 129

Questions about broken-down valises

What is broken-down valises the plural of?
Broken-down valises is the plural of broken-down valise.

Words near broken-down valises in the dictionary

  1. broken with
  2. broken with tradition
  3. broken-backed
  4. broken-down
  5. broken-down valise
  6. broken-down valises
  7. broken-handed
  8. broken-heart syndrome
  9. broken-hearted
  10. broken-heartedly
  11. broken-heartedness

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: broken-down valises (page history and authors); broken-down valise (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “broken-down valises.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/broken-down_valises. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.