Word.ws English Dictionary

go down the drain

go down the drain verb: synonym of go down the toilet: to fail.

Verb

go down the drain (third-person singular simple present goes down the drain, present participle going down the drain, simple past went down the drain, past participle gone down the drain)

  1. (euphemistic, idiomatic) Synonym of go down the toilet: to fail.

Synonyms of go down the drain

Forms of go down the drain

third-person singular presentgoes down the drain
present participlegoing down the drain
pastwent down the drain
past participlegone down the drain

Questions about go down the drain

What does go down the drain mean?
Go down the drain means synonym of go down the toilet: to fail.
What part of speech is go down the drain?
Go down the drain is a verb.
What is the past tense of go down the drain?
The past tense of go down the drain is went down the drain.

Words near go down the drain in the dictionary

  1. go down like a sack of potatoes
  2. go down on
  3. go down south
  4. go down swinging
  5. go down that road
  6. go down the drain
  7. go down the khazi
  8. go down the pan
  9. go down the road
  10. go down the toilet
  11. go down the tube

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: go down the drain (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:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-go down the drain.ogg.

Cite this entry: “go down the drain.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/go_down_the_drain. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.