gone down the drain
Lost for nothing
Gone down the drain describes something wasted, lost, or ruined—typically time, money, or effort that yielded nothing.
The image is of valuable things disappearing into a sink or sewer, irretrievably lost: All that planning went down the drain when they canceled the event.
There goes my raise, right down the drain.
- spentExhausted or disbursed
- squanderUse up carelessly
- money pitEndlessly expensive undertaking
- lostUnable to navigate
- up in smokeDestroyed, wasted, ruined
fruitless · thrown away · debacle · fiasco · all for nothing · dissipate · irretrievable · futile · lost cause · vanish · deplete · pissed away · misused · evaporate · decay · fritter · blown it · negligence
gone down the drainsaved
Kept from loss
preserved · safeguarded · protected · kept · retained
gone down the drainpaid off
Yielded a positive result
borne fruit · bore fruit · panned out · worked out · succeeded
gone down the drainflourished
Grew vigorously, succeeded
thrived · grown · multiplied · accumulated · compounded
gone, goer, down, downer, downed, downing, drain, drains, drained