rainy day

Noun

rainy day (plural rainy days)

1. (idiomatic) A difficult period of need, in reference to a time when money will be needed.
   • I've kept some money in the bank for a rainy day.
   • Their food is principally composed of nuts, but they also eat corn and grain, acorns and beech-nuts, whilst (possibly as a corrective to so much vegetable food) they will at times feed upon beetles, caterpillars, and other insects and their larvæ. The manner in which they obtain the kernel of the...1901, W. Swaysland, “The Nuthatch”, in Familiar Wild Birds (Third Series, With Coloured Plates), Cassell and Company, pages 30-31
2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see rainy, day.
   • Rainy days and Mondays always get me down.
   • Sometimes on a rainy day I sit around and weed the losers out of my address book.1997, George Carlin, Brain Droppings, New York: Hyperion Books, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, →OL, page 94