take a bath

take a bath

1. Literally, to bathe in the bathtub. A: "Remember that the kids need to take a bath tonight." B: "Yep, I'm filling up the tub now."
2. To bathe, not necessarily in the bathtub. I got really dirty, so I'll need to take a bath before we go. I'll just hop in the shower when I get home.
3. To experience or accumulate a large financial loss on a transaction or investment. Often followed by "on (something)." Millions of the company's investors took a bath when the CEO resigned and its stock began plummeting. A lot of stores started stocking huge numbers of the gimmicky fad toy, but now they're taking a bath on it as public interest evaporates.
See also: bath, take
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

take a bath (on something)

Sl. to accumulate large losses on a business transaction or an investment. (Alludes to getting soaked, a slang expression meaning "being heavily charged for something.") Sally took a bath on that stock that she bought. Its price went down to nothing. I'm afraid that I will take a bath on any investment I make.
See also: bath, take
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs.

take a bath

Experience serious financial loss, as in The company took a bath investing in that new product. This idiom, which originated in gambling, transfers washing oneself in a bathtub to being "cleaned out" financially. [Slang; first half of 1900s]
See also: bath, take
The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer.

take a bath

JOURNALISM
If a person or a company takes a bath, they lose a lot of money on an investment. It is America's third-biggest bank failure and its stockholders have taken a bath. Investors in the company took a 35 million dollar bath on the company, which entered bankruptcy proceedings 18 months ago.
See also: bath, take
Collins COBUILD Idioms Dictionary, 3rd ed.

take a bath

suffer a heavy financial loss. informal
1997 Bookseller When the yen drops in value, as it is doing right now, we take a bath. There is no way to change the prices fast enough.
See also: bath, take
Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary

take a ˈbath

(American English, informal, business) lose a lot of money, for example on a business agreement or an investment: Big investors sold their shares before the price crashed, but small investors took a bath. OPPOSITE: make, etc. a mint (of money)
See also: bath, take
Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary

take a bath

verb
See take a bath on something
See also: bath, take
McGraw-Hill's Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions

take a bath

Informal
To experience serious financial loss: "Small investors who latched on to hot new issues took a bath in Wall Street" (Paul A. Samuelson).
See also: bath, take
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition.

take a bath, to

To experience a major financial loss; also, to fail miserably. This slangy cliché dates from the first half of the twentieth century and originated in gambling. It transfers cleaning oneself in a tub to being cleaned out (see take to the cleaners). It appeared in BusinessWeek on October 27, 1975: “Our profits won’t make up for the bath we took last fall and winter.” In the alternative sense, the University of Tennessee’s newspaper, the Daily Beacon, stated, “As . . . Sen. Robert Dole put it, the GOP ‘took a bath’ in elections for the U.S. House” (Nov. 4, 1982).
See also: take
The Dictionary of Clichés by Christine Ammer
See also:
  • take a bath, to
  • bathe in
  • bask
  • bask in
  • baller
  • scum
  • bathtub scum
  • yep
  • that's the bunny
  • gold-plated