не у дел

• НЕ У ДЕЛ быть, остаться и т.п.

[PrepP; Invar; subj-compl with copula (subj: human) or, rare, nonagreeing postmodif]

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⇒ (to be, remain etc) without work (often as a result of a firing, retirement, or dismissal):

- X не у дел{{}}≈ X is out of work <out of a job>;

- X is not working.

     ♦ Когда мы жили вместе, она была не у дел по болезии и подрабатывала у меня, помогая по хозяйству (Мандельштам 2). At the time when we lived in the same apartment, she was out of work because of ill-health and I gave her a little money for helping with my housework (2a).

     ♦ Муж [Сони] - бывший лётчик, в отставке по болезни. Больно ударила его эта отставка, не мог примириться, что не у дел (Грекова 3). Her [Sonya's] husband was a former pilot, retired because of illness. That retirement had hit him hard. He couldn't live with the fact that he wasn't working (3a).

     ♦ И вот она [революция] пришла... а он [Аверкий Степанович], прирождённый и постоянный рабочелюбец... очутился на бобах, не у дел, в опустевшем посёлке, из которого разбежались рабочие, частью шедшие тут за меньшевиками (Пастернак 1). [context transl] Now it [the revolution] had come...but he [Averkii Stepanovich], the born and faithful champion of the proletariat...had been left high and dry; instead of being in the thick of things, he was in a remote village from which the workers - some of whom were Mensheviks - had fled! (1a).