on the street

• on the streets

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on the street

1. (idiomatic) Without a home; without the means to afford good shelter.

   Synonyms: homeless, houseless, unhoused, unsheltered

   We haven't been able to pay rent for five months. Next month we'll be on the street.

   • 2018, The Observer, The Observer view on the budget and the decade of austerity, 28 October :

     Delays with universal credit have compounded the problem, pushing people into rent arrears and putting them at risk of losing their homes. And the retrenchment of services such as mental health and drug rehabilitation means that vulnerable people are more likely to find themselves on the street.

2. (idiomatic) In public, including daily life and the crime that sometimes occurs there; especially, in the world of street crime and those whose daily life is immersed in it.

   At that time, a greenback was worth more on the street than it was at the foreign exchange office.

   Their attitude is that the police commissioner's bluster isn't worth much on the street.

3. (idiomatic) In actual practice, as opposed to in a laboratory, classroom, etc.

   These students are eager to test their knowledge on the street instead of in the exam book.

   • 1983, Streets as Public Property: Opportunities for Public/private Interactin in Planning and Design, page 108:

     But to work "on the street" is clearly quite different from "working the street."

   • 1995, Barbara F. Freed, Second Language Acquisition in a Study Abroad Context, page 317:

     Indeed, the contribution of study abroad to significant language gains is commonly believed to derive from the numerous opportunities program participants have to engage in first-hand language practice on "the street", in restaurants, in shops, in the homes of native speaker friends and acquaintances as well as a variety of other out-of-class environments in which students find themselves while living in-country.

   • 2020, Adam Kucharski, The Rules of Contagion, page 123:

     'We took five years of strategy development before we put a single thing on the street,' Slutkin said.

4. (idiomatic) Working as a sex worker.

   Times got a little desperate and she was on the street for a while.

6. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see on,‎ the,‎ street.

   The pavement markings on the street were confusing to foreigners.