What do You Mean by ‘Scraping the Barrel’?

To scrape the barrel means —

• to use the least desirable parts of something;
• to use things or people of low quality because all the good ones have already been taken.

This expression has been derived from the historical practice in the early United States of storing food in barrels. When food supplies ran low, only what was at the very bottom remained and had to be taken by scraping the barrel.

Let’s see an example —

“We couldn’t get the opportunity of first-day recruitment in this college. We are now left to scrape the barrel with B and C students.”

It means that all the ‘A’ level students have already been picked up by the recruiters who got to recruit on day one itself. Only B and C level students are left to pick.

I hope you found this story interesting. If you did, buy my full course on Udemy or watch it for free on Skillshare by signing up here. This course covers nearly 380 idioms with their origins and backstories.

Hi, I am Gauri Shanker, a Vocab teacher and enthusiast. I teach vocabulary in a fun and engaging way. You can check out my courses here.