{
  "id": "rock-bottom.floor",
  "term": "rock bottom",
  "sense": "floor",
  "pos": "noun",
  "status": "review",
  "level": 20,
  "domain": "psychology",
  "style": "folk",
  "definition": "the first wall that holds under a falling parameter, which is why the lowest point is also the first point a rebuild can anchor to.",
  "folk_gloss": "the lowest point in a bad stretch, from which the only way is up",
  "emergence": {
    "components": [
      "parameter.condition",
      "fall.gravity",
      "wall.range-end",
      "hold.physical",
      "first.order",
      "low.spatial",
      "weight.physical",
      "maintenance.upkeep"
    ],
    "interaction": "A parameter falls through window after window whose walls give; the fall ends at the first wall that holds, and because that wall bears weight, maintenance can restart against a fixed point instead of a moving one.",
    "novel_properties": [
      "first holding wall",
      "fall-terminating boundary",
      "anchor point for rebuilding"
    ]
  },
  "examples": [
    {
      "text": "An addict names the arrest, not the years before it, as the turning point: it was the first consequence that did not move.",
      "domain": "society"
    },
    {
      "text": "A share price falls through one analyst floor after another until it reaches the price at which buyers actually appear.",
      "domain": "economics"
    },
    {
      "text": "A dropping water table stabilizes at the depth of the impermeable rock layer, and the wells are drilled to that depth.",
      "domain": "geology"
    }
  ],
  "relations": [],
  "used_by": [],
  "forms": [
    "hit rock bottom",
    "hitting rock bottom",
    "rock bottom"
  ],
  "closed": false,
  "provenance": {
    "author": "claude-opus-5:hand-curated",
    "date": "2026-08-22",
    "confidence": 0.8,
    "sources": [
      "folk phrase — the self-model drifting"
    ]
  },
  "canonical": "https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-rock-bottom.floor"
}