Ninth-inning

adj

adj ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Adjective
  1. 1
    Happening in the ninth inning of a baseball game.
  2. 2
    Happening as late as possible, eleventh-hour. idiomatic

    "1921. Kenneth D. Cassidy, "Teaching Truck Salesmanship", Michigan Manufacturer & Financial Record. The result has been that some truck manufacturers already have gone into bankruptcy, while many are making a ninth-inning attempt at re-organization in a desperate attempt to ward off failure."

Example

More examples

"1921. Kenneth D. Cassidy, "Teaching Truck Salesmanship", Michigan Manufacturer & Financial Record. The result has been that some truck manufacturers already have gone into bankruptcy, while many are making a ninth-inning attempt at re-organization in a desperate attempt to ward off failure."

Etymology

In baseball, the ninth inning is the last period of the game.

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