If Crabtree is down on his luck he will most likely be willing to do anything for money.

--He is down on his luck. He asked me to ask you to ask somebody named Boylan, a billsticker, to give him a job as a sandwichman.

Willie "tries to resist"—being, as the synopsis explains, "an attractive and intelligent girl who is simply down on her luck in the ruins of postwar Germany."

Pitcher Kyle Lohse, 29, who has had unsuccessful stints with the Minnesota Twins, Cincinnati Reds and Philadelphia Phillies, seems to have found a home with the St. Louis Cardinals, a team that has a knack for turning around pitchers down on their luck.

Down on one's luck

Meaning

Adj