in the soup

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

in the soup

1. (idiomatic) In trouble.
   • 1915, John Buchan, The Thirty-Nine Steps, ch. 2:

     [U]nless the murderer came back, I had till about six o'clock in the morning for my cogitations. I was in the soup — that was pretty clear.

   • 1919, P. G. Wodehouse, "Jeeves and the Hard Boiled Egg" in My Man Jeeves:

     [T]he poor old lad is absolutely dependent on that remittance of yours, and when you cut it off, don't you know, he was pretty solidly in the soup.

   • 1989 Feb. 13, John Greenwald, "Tiptoe Through the Tensions," Time:

     "If they don't hit it off, we're all in the soup," warned Yasuhiro Nakasone, Japan's former Prime Minister, as his successor prepared to meet President Bush last week.