dChan
Anonymous ID: f25416 April 10, 2020, 10:57 a.m. No.8747650   🗄️.is đź”—kun

over a barrel

In a weak position; helpless, in someone’s power. This term allegedly was derived from the practice of reviving drowning victims by positioning them headfirst over a barrel and rolling it back and forth, thereby attempting to empty the lungs of water. Happily this practice has been replaced by better methods of resuscitation, but the helpless position of the victim has survived in the current cliché. Raymond Chandler gave it a double meaning in The Big Sleep (1939): “We keep a file on unidentified bullets nowadays. Some day you might use that gun again. Then you’d be over a barrel.”