rock bottom

Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.

Meaning · English

the lowest or most desperate point in a situation

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

điểm thấp nhất hoặc tuyệt vọng nhất trong một tình huống

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Literally: the bottom of a rock
Where it’s used: Used Widespread English

Examples

HOMES will fall another 15 per cent in value before they hit rock bottom, an influential City report has predicted.
In the days of rock bottom underground pay, 20 was not to be sneezed at.

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 “rock bottom” mean?

the lowest or most desperate point in a situation Literally: the bottom of a rock

Is “rock bottom” formal or informal?

No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.