What is "hit the skids"

Skid \Skid\ (sk[i^]d), n. [Icel. sk[=i][eth] a billet of wood. See Shide.] [Written also skeed.]

1. A shoe or clog, as of iron, attached to a chain, and placed under the wheel of a wagon to prevent its turning when descending a steep hill; a drag; a skidpan; also, by extension, a hook attached to a chain, and used for the same purpose.

2. A piece of timber used as a support, or to receive pressure. Specifically:

   1. pl. (Naut.) Large fenders hung over a vessel's side to protect it in handling a cargo.
      --Totten.

   2. One of a pair of timbers or bars, usually arranged so as to form an inclined plane, as form a wagon to a door, along which anything is moved by sliding or rolling.

   3. One of a pair of horizontal rails or timbers for supporting anything, as a boat, a barrel, etc.

3. (A["e]ronautics) A runner (one or two) under some flying machines, used for landing.

4. A low movable platform for supporting heavy items to be transported, typically of two layers, and having a space between the layers into which the fork of a fork lift can be inserted; it is used to conveniently transport heavy objects by means of a fork lift; -- a skid without wheels is the same as a pallet.

5. pl. Declining fortunes; a movement toward defeat or downfall; -- used mostly in the phrase

   on the skids and

   hit the skids.

6. [From the v.] Act of skidding; -- called also side slip.

vb. (context intransitive idiomatic English) to fail; decline