on one's beam ends
English edit
Etymology edit
By analogy with a capsizing ship; see usage note at beam-ends.
Prepositional phrase edit
Further reading edit
- “be on your beam ends”, in Cambridge English Dictionary, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: Cambridge University Press, 1999–present.
- “on one's beam ends”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.