Last-ditch

adj

adj ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Final, as a last resort; done in desperation. idiomatic

    "a last-ditch attack"

Adjective
  1. 1
    of something done as a final recourse (especially to prevent a crisis or disaster) wordnet

Example

More examples

"The minority party made a last-ditch effort to block passage of the bills."

Etymology

Popularized and given its current sense through an 1847 translation by Agnes Strickland of a quote attributed to William of Orange during the French invasion of 1672 on his being advised to surrender Holland to Louis XIV: "No, I mean to die in the last ditch."

Related phrases

last-ditcher

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.