lost cause

English

Pronunciation

• Audio (AU):

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Noun

lost cause (plural lost causes)

1. (idiomatic) A cause, attempt, or effort that is hopeless or futile.

   He has already made up his mind, and it's a lost cause to try to change it.

   • 2015, Paul Wilson, Alexis Sánchez sends Arsenal into final after gallant Reading go the distance (in The Guardian, 18 April 2015)[1]

     Artfully pulling the ball back to leave McCleary chasing a lost cause, Sánchez calmly made space for a shot and applied a finish that beat the despairing dives of both Federici and Michael Hector, the latter vainly attempting to recover position when it was too late.

Synonyms

• sinking ship

Translations

a cause, attempt, or effort that is hopeless or futile

• Finnish: toivoton tapaus
• French: peine perdue (fr) f, cause perdue (fr) f
• Hungarian: veszett ügy
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Romanian: cauză pierdută f
• Russian: безнадёга (ru) f (beznadjóga), безнадёжность (ru) f (beznadjóžnostʹ)

See also

• forlorn hope

Anagrams

• cassoulet, osculates, scaleouts, scales out