drug on the market

drug on the market idiom
A commodity whose supply greatly exceeds the demand for it. For example, Now that asbestos is considered dangerous, asbestos tile is a drug on the market. The use of the noun drug in the sense of “something overabundant” (as opposed to a medicine or narcotic) dates from the mid-1600s, but the first record of the full expression, put as drug in the market, dates only from the 1830s.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer. Copyright © 2003, 1997 by The Christine Ammer 1992 Trust. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

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