lose (one's) shirt
(redirected from lose our shirt)lose (one's) shirt
To lose a significant amount of one's money (often all of it). This is my last chance—I'll lose my shirt if this business venture fails.
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms. © 2022 Farlex, Inc, all rights reserved.
lose one's shirt
Fig. to lose a lot of money; to lose all of one's assets (as if one had even lost one's shirt). I almost lost my shirt on that deal. I have to invest more wisely. No, I can't loan you $200. I just lost my shirt at the racetrack.
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs. © 2002 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
lose one's shirt
Face financial ruin, go bankrupt, as in He lost his shirt in the last recession. This expression implies one has lost even one's shirt. [Early 1900s]
The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer. Copyright © 2003, 1997 by The Christine Ammer 1992 Trust. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
lose your shirt
lose all your possessions, especially as the result of unwise financial transactions. informalFarlex Partner Idioms Dictionary © Farlex 2017
lose your ˈshirt
(informal) lose all or a lot of your money and possessions: ‘How did you two get on at the races?’ ‘I won $300 and Paul lost his shirt.’ OPPOSITE: make a killingFarlex Partner Idioms Dictionary © Farlex 2017
lose one’s shirt
tv. to go broke; to lose everything of value, even one’s shirt. I lost my shirt on that bank deal.
McGraw-Hill's Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions Copyright © 2006 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
lose (one's) shirt
Slang To lose everything one has or owns.
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
lose one's shirt, to
To lose everything. This term alludes to betting on or investing everything one owns in some venture, but at one time it meant to become very angry (in effect the opposite of keep your shirt on). The current cliché, aided and abetted by the Great Depression, is a twentieth-century locution. “He hit the market . . . about the time the bottom dropped out of it. He lost his shirt!” (E. B. Mann, Thirsty Range, 1935).
The Dictionary of Clichés by Christine Ammer Copyright © 2013 by Christine Ammer