у разбитого корыта

• У РАЗБИТОГО КОРЫТА остаться, оказаться, сидеть и т. п.; К РАЗБИТОМУ КОРЫТУ вернуться both coll

[PrepP; these forms only; subj-compl with copula (subj: human) or adv; fixed WO]

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⇒ (to be left) with nothing, having lost all one had gained, having had one's hopes in sth. thwarted etc:

- (be left) empty-handed;

- (be left) with zilch;

- [in limited contexts](be) no better off than when one started;

- (be) back to square one;

- (be) (right) back where one started;

- (be) back where one started again.

     ♦ Денежная реформа разорила его: деньги, которые он копил десять лет, превратились в бумагу, и он остался у разбитого корыта. The monetary reform impoverished him: the money he'd been saving for ten years turned into worthless paper and he was left with nothing.

     ♦ Думаю, получив срок, Убожко по крайней мере был утешен, что "невеста" осталась у разбитого корыта... (Амальрик 1). I would guess that when Ubozhko was sentenced, he at least felt consoled by the fact that his "ex-wife" was no better off than when she started... (1a).

     ♦ Вот мы и сидим опять у разбитого корыта, сказал Клеветник (Зиновьев 1). "We're back where we started again," said Slanderer (1a).

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← From Aleksandr Pushkin's tale "The Fisherman and the Goldfish" ("Сказка о рыбаке и рыбке"), 1835, in which the magic goldfish punishes the fisherman's greedy wife by taking back everything it has given her, leaving her with the same broken washtub she had before the goldfish appeared on the scene.