English

Alternative forms

• (alternative spelling) bad-off
• badly off, badly-off

Adjective

bad off ‎(comparative worse off, superlative worst off)

1. In unfortunate circumstances, especially having financial difficulty.
   • 1934, James Thomas Farrell, Studs Lonigan: A Trilogy Comprising Young Lonigan, The Young Manhood of Studs Lonigan, and Judgment Day, page 287

     But I always come to this conclusion. No matter how bad off you are, there's always somebody in a worse boat.

   • 1975, Grover Maxwell, Robert Milford Anderson, Induction, Probability, and Confirmation, page 126

     Since both modes are equally bad off, it would seem that we are just as well advised to embrace hypothetico-inferential reasoning in all its fullness

   • 1985, Walker Percy, Lewis A. Lawson, Victor A. Kramer, Conversations with Walker Percy, page 111

     Who is worse off? This poor fellow who is desperately neurotic to the point of being amnesic, and wandering in and out of fugues, as bad off as he was? Or the so-called well-adjusted, productive businessman, and so forth, who is clinically sane by the same standards?

Synonyms

• poor

Antonyms

• well off
• rich