lost cause

English

Pronunciation

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

Noun

lost cause (plural lost causes)

1. (idiomatic) A person or thing that is hopeless or futile.

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

   • 2015 April 18, Paul Wilson, The Guardian‎:

     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.

   • 2022, “Kill Bill”, in SOS, performed by SZA:

     I get the sense that it's a lost cause / I get the sense that you might really love her / This text gon' be evidence, this text is evidence / I tried to ration with you, no murders or crimes of passion, but damn

Synonyms

• sinking ship

Derived terms

• Lost Cause

Translations

person or thing that is hopeless or futile

Chinese: Mandarin: 徒勞 / 徒劳 (zh) (túláo) (verb) Dutch: verloren zaak f, kansloze zaak f Finnish: toivoton tapaus French: peine perdue (fr) f, cause perdue (fr) f Hungarian: veszett ügy Irish: cúis caillte f Italian: causa persa (it) Polish: przegrana sprawa f Romanian: cauză pierdută f Russian: безнадёга (ru) f (beznadjóga), безнадёжность (ru) f (beznadjóžnostʹ) Scottish Gaelic: cùis chaillte f Spanish: causa perdida f, caso perdido m

See also

• forlorn hope
• no-hoper

Anagrams

• cassoulet, osculates, scaleouts, scales out