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What is "on the skids"

The Collaborative International Dictionary
on 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.

Wiktionary
on the skids

a. (context idiomatic English) In decline; go downhill; in trouble.

Usage examples of "on the skids".

Daniel knew he could trust the mechanism now, so he brought her directly into dynamic balance on the skids instead of waiting until the Ahura was under way on the waterjet.

Piet cut the motor and we skipped forward on momentum, crashing down on the skids about the boat's own length ahead of its thruster's final pulse.

It's like this setting was picked specifically to remind them that the Nipponese economy has been on the skids for the last several years--a situation that the Asian currency crisis has only worsened.

As soon as the helicopter settled on the skids, he slumped over in the harness and sat unmoving.

I was born in 1940, a year when everybody was saying that the individual was on the skids and the future belonged to mass man.

Sipe like you asked me to but he is in no position to do anything for anybody hes on the skids himself the Barcelona went bankrupt last winter and now old Sipe is just watchman on the place but he sent his best regards for old time sake he wanted to know if you ever developed a left.

From then on the skids were under Dalby, but it wasn't doing me a lot of good.

McCloskey was on the skids due to his drinking and some very heavy doping, and he himself went out of his way to make that clear during his interrogation.