phrasal verb · academic
bottom out
UK/ˈbɒtəm aʊt/US/ˈbɑːtəm aʊt/BOT·tom OUT
to reach the lowest point and stop falling before starting to rise
Examples
“After months of decline, housing prices finally bottomed out in March.”
“Unemployment appears to have bottomed out and may begin to fall.”
“Commodity prices bottomed out before recovering slowly.”
Band 8 sentence
“Consumer confidence bottomed out in April before a gradual recovery started in May.”
Collocations
- bottom out at
- appear to bottom out
Word family
Common mistakes
bottom up→bottom out
bottomed at 5% then increased→bottomed out at 5% then increased
Say it for a higher band
5hit a low→6reach the lowest point→7+bottom out
Synonyms
hit a low
reach the lowest point
Easily confused
hit a low
“The GDP hit a low last quarter.”
reach the lowest point
“The unemployment rate reached the lowest point in May.”
Related words
Learn this word with the rest of its set, and get reminded at the right time.
In Overall trends
Learn it with its set