out (of) the window
out (of) the window
Forgotten or disregarded; lost or wasted. One member of the audience started shouting at the speaker during the presentation, and all sense of decorum went right out of the window. Once the government deregulated the industry, expensive safety precautions were the first thing out the window.
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms. © 2015 Farlex, Inc, all rights reserved.
out (of) the window
Fig. gone; wasted. All that work gone out the window because my computer crashed. My forty dollars—out the window! Why didn't I save my money?
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs. © 2002 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
out of the window
Discarded, tossed out. This term is often used in the phrase go out the window, as in For the town planners past experience seems to have gone out the window. It alludes to unwanted items being hurled out of the window. [First half of 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.
out the window
mod. gone; wasted. My forty dollars—out the window. Why didn’t I save my money?
McGraw-Hill's Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions Copyright © 2006 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
out the window
Discarded, gone forever. The transfer from objects thrown or dropped out of a window to ideas and other more ephemeral things took place in the seventeenth century. Dickens played with it in Pickwick Papers: “‘I am ruminating,’ said Mr. Pickwick, ‘on the strange mutability of human affairs.’—‘Ah, I see—in at the palace door one day, out at the window the next. Philosopher, sir?’—‘An observer of human nature, sir,’ said Mr. Pickwick.”
The Dictionary of Clichés by Christine Ammer Copyright © 2013 by Christine Ammer