TO BE THROWN ON ONE’S BEAM ENDS, verb. phr. (colloquial).—1. To be in bad circumstances; at one’s last shift; hard-up: a metaphor drawn from sea-faring life: a ship is said to be on her beam ends when on her side by stress of weather, or shifting of cargo, as to be submerged. 2. Also less figuratively, to be thrown to the ground; reduced to a sitting or lying posture.
1830. MARRYAT, The King’s Own, xxvi. Our first lieutenant was … ON HIS BEAM ENDS, with the rheumatiz.
1843. DICKENS, Martin Chuzzlewit, xl. In short, he laughed the idea down completely; and Tom, abandoning it, was THROWN UPON HIS BEAM ENDS again for some other solution.
1851. H. MAYHEW, London Labour and the London Poor, III. 121. When a fellow is ON HIS BEAM ENDS, as I was then, he must keep his eyes about him, and have impudence enough for anything, or else he may stop and starve.
1833. REV. E. BRADLEY (‘Cuthbert Bede’), The Further Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green. You get on stunningly, Gig-lamps, … and have n’t been ON YOUR BEAM ENDS more than once a minute.
