Word.ws English Dictionary

pour down the drain

pour down the drain verb: to waste prior work by subsequent bad decisions.

Verb

pour down the drain (third-person singular simple present pours down the drain, present participle pouring down the drain, simple past and past participle poured down the drain)

  1. (derogatory, idiomatic, transitive) To waste prior work by subsequent bad decisions.

Forms of pour down the drain

third-person singular presentpours down the drain
present participlepouring down the drain
past participlepoured down the drain
pastpoured down the drain

Questions about pour down the drain

What does pour down the drain mean?
Pour down the drain means to waste prior work by subsequent bad decisions.
What part of speech is pour down the drain?
Pour down the drain is a verb.
What is the past tense of pour down the drain?
The past tense of pour down the drain is poured down the drain.

Words near pour down the drain in the dictionary

  1. pour cats and dogs
  2. pour cold water on
  3. pour cold water over
  4. pour dogs and cats
  5. pour down
  6. pour down the drain
  7. pour encourager les autres
  8. pour forth
  9. pour fuel on the fire
  10. pour gasoline on the fire
  11. pour good money after bad

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pour 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.

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