": : : Thank you for this wonderful service. To have someone over the barrel means to have someone totally at your mercy. a hollow cylindrical container, traditionally made of wooden staves bound by wooden or metal hoops.

Ask questions on any topic, get real answers from real people. How to use barrel in a sentence. Barrel of Monkeys is a toy game released by Lakeside Toys in 1965. To say someone is "in the barrel" or "taking a turn in the barrel" means it's their turn to do an unpleasant task or to suffer an unpleasant experience. Then you’d be over a barrel. Also a measure of capacity of varying quantity. Some day you might use that gun again. barrel | barreled [past tense] | barreling [past participle] | barrelled [British, past participle] | barrelling [present participle] | over a barrel [sense-specific] | bbl [abbreviation, sense-specific] | throat [synonym, sense-specific]. over a barrel. What is the origin of the expression, "you've got me over a barrel"? In Reply to: Over a barrel posted by ESC on July 05, 2009 at 18:58:: : : What is the origin of phrase "to be over a barrel? It fits the meaning of the phrase much better than the resuscitation one does. Firstly, a person saved from drowning was often laid to the barrel to empty the water in his or her lungs.

Bound hand and foot, he was rolled over a barrel.” This is by far the more likely origin, since a person held over a barrel is helpless, whether face down or face up.

We will look the meaning of the term over a barrel , some possible places where this idiom originated and some examples of its use in sentences. In Reply to: Over a barrel posted by ESC on July 05, 2009 at 18:58:: : : What is the origin of phrase "to be over a barrel? Imagine how hard it would be to shoot a fish in the river or in the ocean. Noun Edit. What does the phrase “over a barrel mean”? It is a nautical term, which derives from the practice of hanging a drowned, usually unconscious person over a barrel to clear their lungs of water. The phrase over a barrel, meaning to be helpless or in a dire predicament, has been in use since at least 1939 when it was used in Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep : We keep a file on unidentified bullets nowadays. Share it.

The origin of the idiom over a barrel is obscure. See more. Traditionally, the barrel was a standard size of measure referring to a set capacity or weight of a given commodity. I BELIVE IT CAME FROM THE OLD SAILING … Know an answer? Bbl definition, barrel. One theory is that the idiom refers to the practice of draping a drowned man over a barrel in order to clear his lungs of water.