English

Alternative forms

• drug in the market

Noun

drug on the market ‎(plural drugs on the market)

1. (idiomatic) something which is overabundant at the moment and thus not in demand.
   • 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. — J.C. Hutcheson, "Fritz and Eric", 1880
   • ...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. — Harry Collingwood, "The Wreck of the Andromeda", 1923