Word.ws English Dictionary

scrape the bottom of the barrel

scrape the bottom of the barrel verb: to settle for a poor option due to a lack or unavailability of anything more favorable.

Verb

scrape the bottom of the barrel (third-person singular simple present scrapes the bottom of the barrel, present participle scraping the bottom of the barrel, simple past and past participle scraped the bottom of the barrel)

  1. (idiomatic, informal) To settle for a poor option due to a lack or unavailability of anything more favorable.
    • They must really have been scraping the bottom of the barrel if they couldn't find a better design than that.
    • The bottom of the barrel was scraped on August 22 when Shrewsbury had to produce Taunton
      2-6-0 No. 6312 to work the 8.10 p.m. from Paddington between Wolverhampton and Shrewsbury; the stranger was in trouble in the early hours of the next morning at Hollinswood, but managed to reach Shrewsbury.1961 October, “Motive Power Miscellany: Western Region”, in Trains Illustrated, page 635

Synonyms of scrape the bottom of the barrel

Forms of scrape the bottom of the barrel

third-person singular presentscrapes the bottom of the barrel
present participlescraping the bottom of the barrel
past participlescraped the bottom of the barrel
pastscraped the bottom of the barrel

Origin of scrape the bottom of the barrel

Derived from the historical practice in the early European history of storing food in barrels; when food supplies ran low, only what was on the very bottom of the barrel remained, and had to be removed by scraping. Oil in a barrel has different fractions with a different weight. The heavier fractions like asphaltum sink to the bottom of the barrel and can be difficult to scrape from the bottom.

Questions about scrape the bottom of the barrel

What does scrape the bottom of the barrel mean?
Scrape the bottom of the barrel means to settle for a poor option due to a lack or unavailability of anything more favorable.
What part of speech is scrape the bottom of the barrel?
Scrape the bottom of the barrel is a verb.
What is the past tense of scrape the bottom of the barrel?
The past tense of scrape the bottom of the barrel is scraped the bottom of the barrel.

Words near scrape the bottom of the barrel in the dictionary

  1. scrape by
  2. scrape down
  3. scrape off
  4. scrape someone off the ceiling
  5. scrape the barrel
  6. scrape the bottom of the barrel
  7. scrape through
  8. scrape together
  9. scrape up
  10. scrape-good
  11. scrape-goods

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: scrape the bottom of the barrel (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-scrape the bottom of the barrel.ogg.

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