(DEAD-BROKE, CLEAR-BROKE or STONE-BROKE), adj. phr. (common).—Ruined; decayed; hard up—of health or pecuniary circumstances: Fr. pas un radis. Hence THE BROKE = the world of the needy; also BROKER (q.v.).
ENGLISH SYNONYMS. Wound up; settled; coopered; smashed up; under a cloud; cleaned out; cracked up; done up; on one’s back; floored; on one’s beam ends; gone to pot; broken-backed; all U. P.; in the wrong box; stumped; feathered; squeezed; dry; gutted; burnt one’s fingers; dished; in a bad way; gone up; gone by the board; made mince meat of; broziered; willowed; not to have a feather to fly with; burst; fleeced; stony; pebble-beached; in Queer Street; stripped; rooked; hard up; hooped-up; strapped; gruelled.
1561–7. J. STOW, Three Fifteenth-Century Chronicles [Camden Society], 127. [A merchant BRAKY (BROKE, became bankrupt)].
1641. H. PEACHAM, The Worth of a Peny [ARBER, English Garner, vi. BROKEN (ruined) Knaves].
c. 1696. B. E., A New Dictionary of the Canting Crew, s.v. BROKE, Officers turn’d out of Commission, Traders Absconding, Quitting their Business and Paying no Debts.
1705. VANBRUGH, The Confederacy, iv., Gripe. Dead? Brass. No … worse … BROKE … She is, poor lady, in the most unfortunate situation of affairs.
1840. American Song.
| The banks are all clean BROKE, | |
| Their rags are good for naught. |
1866. Cincinnati Enquirer, 1 June. When he left the gambling-house, he was observed to turn toward a friend with the words, DEAD-BROKE! and then to disappear round the corner.
1878. J. H. BEADLE, Western Wilds, 46. He staked a pile of ‘chips’ and won; then made and lost, and made and lost alternately, selling his stock when ‘BROKE,’ and scarcely ate or slept till the tail of his last mule was ‘coppered on the jack.’
1887. G. R. SIMS, How the Poor Live, 16. ‘How do you do when you’re STONE BROKE?’ I ask him. ‘Well, sir, sometimes I comes across a gentleman as gives me a bob and starts me again.’
1889. Pall Mall Gazette, Aug. 14. I see that Sullivan made 21,000 dols. out of his fight, but as he was DEAD BROKE before the battle, there won’t be much of it left. Nevertheless, Sullivan has received hundreds of begging letters from folks who want him to pay off mortgages on their homes, or buy them houses and lots, and things of that sort.
1899. R. WHITEING, No. 5 John Street, xxviii. You ’re a toff, STONE-BROKE—that ’s what you are.
1891. LEHMANN, Harry Fludyer at Cambridge, 122. Pat said he was STONEY, or BROKE, or something but he gave me a sov., which was ripping of him.
1897. MARSHALL, Pomes, 106. Full of fixes, assets ‘nixes,’ STONEY-BROKE, and hence these tears. Ibid., 120. On his right a STONEY-BROKE-ER In bad financial health. Ibid., 62. Such forgetfulness is frequent in the annals of THE BROKE.
1901. W. S. WALKER, In the Blood, 159. ’Twon’t be a bad lay fer us when we’re STONEY BROKE down ’ere.
