Word.ws English Dictionary

out at elbows

out at elbows is the alternative form of out at elbow.

Meaning of out at elbow

Adjective

out at elbow (not comparable)

  1. Of a coat, jumper, etc., worn through at the elbows; of clothes, shabby, in poor condition.
    • [T]he children [...] went about in shabby, out-at-elbow clothes, and much worn boots.1894, Ethel Turner, Seven Little Australians, published 1912, page 18
  2. In needy circumstances.
    • There was an old soldier who had been long in the wars—so long, that he was quite out-at-elbows, and did not know where to go to find a living.1890, Joseph Jacobs, “Jack Hannaford”, in English Fairy Tales, page 40

Questions about out at elbows

What is out at elbows the alternative form of?
Out at elbows is the alternative form of out at elbow.

Words near out at elbows in the dictionary

  1. out argue
  2. out argued
  3. out argues
  4. out arguing
  5. out at elbow
  6. out at elbows
  7. out at heels
  8. out at the heels
  9. out back
  10. out ball
  11. out balls

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: out at elbows (page history and authors); out at elbow (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.

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Cite this entry: “out at elbows.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/out_at_elbows. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.