Question

Choose the most suitable meaning for the highlighted phrase:

Sentence: Buying new furniture when they can't take it with them is just pouring money *down the drain*.

a) Become spoilt
b) Being useless
c) On the way to being lost or wasted
d) Excessively used

Answer 1

Hint: A phrase seldom means what the words in the phrase mean. A phrase is a small group of words standing together as a conceptual unit, typically forming a component of a clause.
In the given question, the phrase ‘down the drain’ refers to wasting something to a futile end.

Complete answer:

Let us analyze the options given to us in this question:
Option (a.), 'become spoilt', refers to Diminishing or destroying the value or quality of something or someone.
Therefore, option (a.) is incorrect as its meaning is not synonymous to that of the given phrase ‘down the drain’.

Option (b.), ‘being useless', refers to not serving the purpose or any purpose.
Therefore, option (b.) is incorrect as its meaning is not synonymous to that of the given phrase ‘down the drain’.

Option (c.), ‘on the way to being lost or wasted', refers to something being wasted or going to be wasted.
Therefore, option (c.) is correct as its meaning is synonymous to that of the given phrase ‘down the drain’.

Option (d.), ‘excessively used', refers to something being overused.
Therefore, option (d.) is incorrect as its meaning is not synonymous to that of the given phrase ‘down the drain’.

Note: In this question, do not get confused between option (b.) and option (c.). Option (b.), ‘being useless’ refers to the quality of something, and not the fact that something shall be/ is wasted, which is what ‘down the drain’ and option (c.) refer to.