hit the skids
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
to start to decline or deteriorate
Literally: to slide on skids
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
THE DART VALLEY Light Railway Plc has become the latest steam railway to hit the financial skids with a plunge in passengers, income and overall profitability recorded in the 1991 accounts.
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “hit the skids” mean?
to start to decline or deteriorate Literally: to slide on skids
Is “hit the skids” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.