up a creek

Also, up shit creek; up the creek (without a paddle). In trouble, in a serious predicament, as in If the check doesn't arrive today I'm up a creek, or The car wouldn't start, so I was up the creek without a paddle. This slangy idiom conjures up the image of a stranded canoeist with no way of moving (paddling) the canoe. President Harry S. Truman used the first term in a letter in 1918. The first variant is considered vulgar.

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Example Sentences

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In a place like Prospect Park, if a beaver were to dam up a creek, those creeks could flood, submerging nearby trails and amenities.

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Ocasio-Cortez added that McCarthy "brought himself up a creek without a paddle" when he chose to back the far-right of his party.

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“Do not miss the bus coming home or we will be up a creek,” she said as the pair walked outside, the air crisp as morning haze yielded to blue sky.

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Luckily, they hadn’t ventured out too far; they were still near the shore instead of up a creek.

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I hope this isn’t the kind of benefit of the doubt that is only extended to certain people, or I’ll really be up a creek.

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