scrape the bottom of the barrel

English edit

WOTD – 29 April 2016

An old barrel displayed in the Maritime Museum in Stockholm, Sweden.

Alternative forms edit

scrape the barrel

Etymology edit

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.(Can this⁽⁺⁾ etymology be sourced?)

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.^[1]

Pronunciation edit

Audio (AU) (file)

Verb edit

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)

(idiomatic) To settle for a poor option due to a lack or unavailability of anything better
They must really have been scraping the bottom of the barrel if they couldn't find a better design than that.
- 1961 October, “Motive Power Miscellany: Western Region”, in Trains Illustrated, page 635:
  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.
- 2004, Ronald Carey, The War Above the Trees, Trafford Publishing, →ISBN, page 259:
  We have so few ships that are mission—ready, they are scraping the bottom of the barrel. We are to the point where three damaged ships are being stripped to make one flyable ship.

Translations edit

Translations

Finnish: kaapia laarin pohjia, tyytyä rippeisiin
German: den letzten Rest zusammenkratzen
Luxembourgish: alles zesummekrazen
Polish: na bezrybiu i rak ryba (pl)
Russian: скрести по сусекам impf (skresti po susekam)

References edit

^ Alex Epstein (2014) The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels, Penguin, →ISBN, page 76:
The expression “scraping the bottom of the barrel" comes from the phenomenon of the oil in a barrel existing in different fractions, from heavy to light. The heavy fractions sit at the bottom of the barrel, and the heaviest, like asphaltum, which goes into asphalt, can be hard to scrape out and impossible to use.

[1] Alex Epstein (2014) The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels, Penguin, →ISBN, page 76:
The expression “scraping the bottom of the barrel" comes from the phenomenon of the oil in a barrel existing in different fractions, from heavy to light. The heavy fractions sit at the bottom of the barrel, and the heaviest, like asphaltum, which goes into asphalt, can be hard to scrape out and impossible to use.

[1]