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Forlorn hope
Definitions
- 1 A small troop of soldiers picked to make an advance attack, or the first attack; a storming party. archaic
"Ped[ro]. Stand to your guard ſir, all the devils extant / Are broke upon us, like a cloud of thunder; / There are more women, marching hitherward, / In reſcue of my Miſtris, then ere turn’d taile / At Sturbridge Faire; and I believe, as fiery. / Jaq[ues]. The forlorn-hope’s led by a tanners wife, / I know her by her hide; a deſperate woman: [...]"
- 2 a hopeless or desperate enterprise wordnet
- 3 In the plural form forlorn hopes: the soldiers collectively making up such a troop; (by extension) a group of reckless adventurers. archaic, obsolete
"[T]o make this realme a praye to al venturers, al ſpoylers, all ſnaphanſes, all forlornehopes, all cormerauntes, all reuenours of the worlde, that wyll inuade this realme, is to ſaye, thou poſſeſſyoner of any landes of this realme, of what degree ſo euer thou be, fro the higheſt to the loweſt, ſhalte be ſlayne and deſtroyed, and thy landes taken frome the by thoſe that wyl haue al for them ſelfes."
- 4 Any dangerous or hopeless venture. broadly
"From the tete-a-tete with Mr. Thomas Tough, ſhe goes to her deſk again, and begins to write "With what appetite ſhe may," in the forlorn hope of procuring from her bookſeller part of the money ſhe has been compelled to promiſe to the ſaid Thomas's peremptory demands, on behalf of Mr. Humphrey Hotgooſe."
Etymology
Sense 1 (“troop of soldiers picked to make an advance attack, or the first attack”) is a mistranslation of Dutch verloren hoop (literally “lost troop”): verloren (“lost”, adjective) + hoop (“(obsolete) unit of soldiers, contingent; heap, pile, stack”), mistaking the latter word for the homograph hoop (“hope”). Verloren is the past participle of verliezen (“to lose (possession); to be defeated, to lose (a game)”) (ultimately from Proto-Germanic *fraleusaną (“to cease to have, lose”), from Proto-Indo-European *per- (“before, in front; first”) + *lewH- (“to cut, sever; to separate; to loosen; to lose”)), while hoop is ultimately from Proto-Germanic *haupaz (“a crowd, throng; a heap, pile”), from Proto-Indo-European *kouHp-nó- or *keHup-. Sense 2 (“dangerous or hopeless venture”) is either an extension of the meaning of sense 1, or from the literal meaning of the words forlorn and hope.
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