Meaning

1 senses

  1. (dated, idiomatic, slang)It is (or was) a failure.

Examples

4 sentences

  1. There's no soap.

    Мила немає. — aandrusiak

    ruМыла нет. — shanghainese

    deEs ist keine Seife da. — Manfredo

    CK · Tatoeba · CC BY 2.0 FR · A2Open on TatoebaReport a problem

  2. There is no soap in the bathroom.

    ruВ ванной нет мыла. — marafon

    Ergulis · Tatoeba · CC BY 2.0 FR · A2Open on TatoebaReport a problem

  3. They sold shampoo and conditioner, but no plain soap.

    Just_Balls · Tatoeba · CC BY 2.0 FR · C1Open on TatoebaReport a problem

  4. There's no soap left.

    ruМыло кончилось. — marafon

    deDie Seife ist alle. — Yorwba

    sundown · Tatoeba · CC BY 2.0 FR · A2Open on TatoebaReport a problem

Origin

The phrase appears, with no clear meaning, in a 1755 Samuel Foote nonsense prose poem, "Th

The phrase appears, with no clear meaning, in a 1755 Samuel Foote nonsense prose poem, "The Grand Panjandrum". In the U.S., soap took on the meaning of money (see OED), and so no soap was a denial of money, say in response to a request for some.

Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · source

Synonyms

2 synonyms
no joynothing doing

See also

neighbours in the dictionary
noA1nobilityB2nobleB2noblemanB2

Dictionary text adapted from Wiktionary (Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0) and Open English WordNet / Princeton WordNet (CC BY 4.0, WordNet License); shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. Example sentences and recordings are credited where they appear.

no soap — meaning, examples, forms, synonyms | Krumeto