on the street

alternative on the streets

1. idiomaticWithout a home; without the means to afford good shelter.

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

   1 more example

   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.

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

   Synonyms: homeless, houseless, unhoused, unsheltered

2. idiomaticIn 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.

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

   1 more example

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

3. idiomaticIn 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.

   3 more examples

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

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

   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.

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

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

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

4. idiomaticWorking as a sex worker.

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

5. Publicly known

   She put it on the street, so now everyone knows.

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

   The pavement markings on the street were confusing to foreigners.