Lost cause what does it mean

I am afraid that is a lost cause. From the Hansard archive. Example from the Hansard archive. Contains Parliamentary information licensed under the Open Parliament Licence v3. One vociferous defence of a lost cause was the exception.

I am convinced that they are in some degree defending a lost cause. Everybody who heard him will admire the gallantry and courage with which he pursues his lonely battle for a lost cause. It also means that when the committee voted by a majority of one to reject the common position, it was already fighting a lost cause.

From Europarl Parallel Corpus - English. I think that it is a sign that we are not entirely a lost cause. He said rather apologetically that he was pleading a lost cause. I think my noble friend may be fighting in a good cause, but so far as this question is concerned it is a lost cause. Education without the good will and expertise of the teaching profession is a lost cause.

Such people show enormous courage, and for that reason they attract every pressure group and lost cause. See all examples of lost cause. These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web.

Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors. What is the pronunciation of lost cause? Browse loss-making. Test your vocabulary with our fun image quizzes. Image credits. Word of the Day have a heart of gold. Blog Outsets and onsets! Read More. November 08, To top. English American Examples. Sign up for free and get access to exclusive content:. The patache was never seen again, and there is not much doubt that it was lost with all hands on board.

Without any known cause of offence, a tacit acknowledgement of mutual dislike was shewn by Louis and de Patinos. This vessel, loaded with supplies, went ashore and was lost; and one hundred and twenty Japanese and three Dutchmen were drowned. There is cause for alarm when they bring one hundred and ten ships into these seas without any means of resistance on our part.

A hopeless undertaking, as in Trying to get him to quit smoking is a lost cause. In the s this expression was widely used to describe the Confederacy. New Word List Word List. Save This Word!

We could talk until we're blue in the face about this quiz on words for the color "blue," but we think you should take the quiz and find out if you're a whiz at these colorful terms. Origin of lost cause First recorded in — Words nearby lost cause lossmaking , loss ratio , lossy , lost , lost and found , lost cause , Lost Colony , Los Teques , Lost Generation , lost in the shuffle , lost in thought. Words related to lost cause fool's errand , red herring.

How to use lost cause in a sentence When we honor leaders who fought to preserve a system that enslaved human beings, we are honoring a lost cause that has burdened Virginia for too many years.