down-at-the-heel

down-at-the-heel

Having a worn-out, shabby, or cheap appearance, as due to poverty or overuse. A lot of so-called hipsters try to affect a down-at-the-heel look by wearing second-hand clothing. John has been looking increasingly down-at-the-heel ever since he lost his job last year.
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

down at the heel

/heels
1. With the heel worn down. Used of shoes.
2. Shabby or poor in appearance.
See also: down, heel
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition.
See also:
  • down at the heel
  • down-at-heels
  • down at heel
  • down-at-heel
  • down at the heels
  • down-at-the-heels
  • out at the heel(s)
  • out at the knees
  • out at elbows
  • out at the elbows
References in periodicals archive
In the present down-at-the-heels circumstances of philology, at least in North America, not everyone will follow all of Fulk's arguments, but the attempt will repay the effort.
The story unfolds in a single day in rural England, where the artist is visiting an old flame and former model, Patricia, who is now the wife and assistant of a down-at-the-heels archeologist engaged in excavating a medieval garbage pit.
Thus the origin of the famous "skid road" (not row," as some urbanites term their down-at-the-heels areas).
Under his watch, the city transformed from a down-at-the-heels urban center with a dwindling downtown to an arts and culture hub.
In the down-at-the-heels resort town of Monte Rio, on the banks of the Russian River in California's wine country, is the Bohemian Grove, a 2,700-acre "encampment" that houses the members of the Bohemian Club, founded in 1872 by a bunch of journalists and their friends.
On 26th Street West in Bradenton, a short block north of Cortez Road, look for a down-at-the-heels strip center anchored at its south end by a diamond in the rough.
The new building also functions as an aspirational object in a down-at-the-heels part of town: It is intended to represent the possibility of a richer (intellectually or otherwise) life to the adults and children who will use it every day.
Trains rumble past across the street, and the area of town has at times leaned toward a down-at-the-heels label.
Yuzhno-Sakalinsk, the dusty, down-at-the-heels capital of Sakhalin, is like many provincial Russian burgs, punctuated at its center by a pigeon-desecrated statue of Lenin.
"A Window in Novorusiysk" (1988), a scathing protest, offers convergent impressions of a downtrodden city, attempting to hold its civic head high with the memory of an ill-conceived military assault, and the image of a poor, down-at-the-heels widow who stalks the pier where tourists arrive, not to elicit their pity but to cause embarrassment at her condition.
In May of 1995, at the nadir of economic collapse sparked by peso devaluation, residents of a down-at-the-heels Monterey railyard colony stopped a freight train and broke open boxcars filled with imported corn.
This ritual observance is named in honor of a down-at-the-heels retired New York City policeman, a recovering alcoholic, who is the hero of a series of engaging detective novels by Lawrence Block.
In startling contrast, "The Bottom Line and the Sharp End" is a tender reminiscence about a thirty-year relationship between a hard-working, straight-laced hairdresser and a mercurial, often down-at-the-heels client, a singer named Avril.
Down-at-the-heels actress Anna (Sonja Richter) is having no luck finding decent roles, and her more successful friend Olga (Sidse Babett Knudsen) wants her out of the house.