sinking feeling, a

sinking feeling

A feeling of dread indicating that something bad has happened or is about to happen. As soon as I met him, I got a sinking feeling that he had bad intentions. When I heard about the plane crash, I had a sinking feeling that my friends were on that flight.
See also: feeling, sink
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

*sinking feeling

the feeling that everything is going wrong; a bad feeling in the base of one's stomach. (*Typically: get ~; have ~; give someone ~.) I get a sinking feeling whenever I think of the night of the accident.
See also: feeling, sink
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs.

sinking feeling, a

A sense of dread or apprehension, as in I had a sinking feeling that I'd forgotten my ticket. This expression employs sink in the sense of "become depressed," a usage dating from the early 1600s.
See also: sink
The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer.

a sinking feeling

COMMON If you have a sinking feeling, you suddenly feel that something bad has happened or is likely to happen. I began to have a sinking feeling that I was not going to get rid of her. I've got a sinking feeling that eight months work has just been lost.
See also: feeling, sink
Collins COBUILD Idioms Dictionary, 3rd ed.

a (or that) sinking feeling

an unpleasant feeling caused by the realization that something unpleasant or undesirable has happened or is about to happen.
See also: feeling, sink
Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary

sinking feeling, a

A sense of distress, often perceived in one’s midsection. This term, which dates from the late nineteenth century, alludes to feeling hungry, frightened, or discouraged. About 1920 an advertising slogan for Bovril, a brand of beef extract touted as a restorative, was, “Bovril prevents that sinking feeling.”
See also: sink
The Dictionary of Clichés by Christine Ammer
See also:
  • a sinking feeling
  • a/that sinking feeling
  • sinking feeling
  • story of my life, the
  • (it's/that's the) story of my life
  • it's the story of my life
  • have a bad opinion of (someone or something)
  • have a good, bad, high, low, etc. opinion of somebody/something
  • be downhill all the way
  • downhill all the way