drug on the market

English

Alternative forms

• drug in the market

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Noun

drug on the market (plural drugs on the market)

1. (idiomatic) something which is overabundant at the moment and thus not in demand.
   • 1880, J.C. Hutcheson, Fritz and Eric:

     for days and days he patrolled the town in vain; seeking for work, and finding none. The place, as his candid informer had said, was filled with clerks like himself in search of employment; and they, linguists especially, were a drug in the market — the cessation of the Franco-German War having flooded the country with foreign labour.

   • 1923, Harry Collingwood, The Wreck of the Andromeda:

     ...the bread fruit, roasted in the ashes of the fire, and the custard apples, with tea, furnished forth such a luxurious feast that all fears of possible starvation vanished, while the humble cocoanut at once became a drug on the market, useful enough perhaps as a thirst-quencher but otherwise of little value.