How to Use down-and-out in a Sentence

down-and-out

adjective
  • Shroud killed Robert’s dad and now the down-and-out hero is on the warpath.
    — Christopher Cruz, Rolling Stone, 22 Oct. 2025
  • Or would the down-and-out scene be allowed to remain, warts and all?
    — Kevin Fagan, San Francisco Chronicle, 5 Feb. 2016
  • Not so long ago, Pratt seemed down-and-out and was selling crystals to make a living.
    — Louis Staples, The Atlantic, 1 June 2026
  • The rather down-and-out-looking fellow in front of me was buying a handful of lottery tickets.
    — Jim Nowlan, Chicago Tribune, 5 Mar. 2026
  • But what does Ashley, known to be a bottom-fisher of brands that are down-and-out, want with Puma?
    — Vicki M. Young, Footwear News, 3 Sep. 2019
  • Gardin showed us a country where the medieval and the modern, the down-and-out and la dolce vita, seemed to coexist.
    — Max Norman, New Yorker, 6 Sep. 2025
  • Kupferer’s real-life mother, the splendid Tara Mallen, plays her seemingly down-and-out mom in Mouse.
    — Baz Bamigboye, Deadline, 13 Feb. 2026
  • The first pictures McCullin took were of hoodlums and down-and-outs, subjects that reflected his own hardscrabble background.
    — Andrew Pulver, Air Mail, 31 Jan. 2026
  • Fraser stars as a down-and-out American actor adrift in Tokyo in Rental Family, which was filmed in Japan.
    — Liz Shackleton, Deadline, 18 Sep. 2025
  • The feature is based on the 2018 documentary of the same name that told the story of a down-and-out fighter who becomes involved with one of the country’s top youth boxing programs.
    — Aaron Couch, HollywoodReporter, 25 Nov. 2025
  • Befitting the down-and-out semis, Analog Devices put up good numbers, causing a headlong rush into internet of things (IoT).
    — Jim Cramer, CNBC, 24 Aug. 2025
  • The rotation of capital from sky-high hardware into down-and-out software helped, but so did Salesforce’s better-than-expected earnings report Wednesday evening.
    — Morgan Chittum, CNBC, 28 Feb. 2026
  • The once down-and-out chipmaker continues to fire on all cylinders under Lip Bu Tan, who has only been CEO for 13 months.
    — Jim Cramer, CNBC, 24 Apr. 2026
  • And those Berger hallmarks are certainly on display in the new one, a drama about a dandy named Lord Doyle, a down-and-out con man and gambling addict on the brink of a breakdown in the kitschy gaming hub of Macau.
    — Glenn Whipp, Boston Herald, 17 Oct. 2025
  • What's different in Wednesday's session is that the gains are being driven by the unloved, down-and-out health-care sector thanks to bounce backs in UnitedHealth Group , Eli Lilly and many others.
    — Jeff Marks, CNBC, 13 Aug. 2025
  • Denver Broncos at Kansas City Chiefs — Coming off their first loss since September, the Broncos get a down-and-out Chiefs team playing its third-string quarterback.
    — Jim Reineking, USA Today, 25 Dec. 2025
  • While the aggressively noirish script (by Kubrick and his friend Howard Sackler, who had also written Fear and Desire) about a down-and-out boxer who falls for a gangster’s moll sometimes comes off like a parody, Kubrick is clearly coming into his own here as an artist.
    — Bilge Ebiri, Vulture, 31 Dec. 2025
  • Under the deal, Westbrook has set up projects at the studio, including Sugar Bandits, based on the book Devils in Exile by Chuck Hogan that follows a down-and-out Iraqi war veteran who intercepts drug deals for profit.
    — Mia Galuppo, HollywoodReporter, 3 Sep. 2025
  • Based on William Hjortsberg’s 1978 novel Fallen Angel and the sequel Angel’s Inferno, the series will follow a down-and-out NYC paparazzi, who makes his living finding and photographing people who don’t want to be found, who is hired by a mysterious man to find a missing woman.
    — Justin Kroll, Deadline, 28 May 2026

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'down-and-out.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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