FORLORN HOPE • FREE-TRANSLATOR.COM • Definition of Forlorn hope

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/fərlˈɔrn hoʊp/ Listen

adjective

Forlorn adj.

Deserted; abandoned; lost. "Of fortune and of hope at once forlorn." "Some say that ravens foster forlorn children."

Destitute; helpless; in pitiful plight; wretched; miserable; almost hopeless; desperate. "For here forlorn and lost I tread." "The condition of the besieged in the mean time was forlorn in the extreme." "She cherished the forlorn hope that he was still living."

A forlorn hope (Mil.), a body of men (called in F. enfants perdus, in G. verlornen posten) selected, usually from volunteers, to attempt a breach, scale the wall of a fortress, or perform other extraordinarily perilous service; also, a desperate case or enterprise.

Synonyms: Destitute, lost; abandoned; forsaken; solitary; helpless; friendless; hopeless; abject; wretched; miserable; pitiable.

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Etymology of 'Forlorn hope'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Forlorn hope" Quotes from Famous Books

... hot autumn morning when we prepared to commence our task of railroad building, the last forlorn hope between ourselves and ruin. Harry and I stood each beside our teams, which were harnessed to a great iron scoop or scraper designed to tear out a heavy load of soil at each traverse. This we would pile in the slight hollows, so that, sinking a few feet through the rises and raised slightly ...

— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss

... uncle's dinner he lay sleepless, vainly endeavouring to find a way out of the difficulty. It was not till early morning that he faced the inevitable. He hated to abandon the schedule. To do so meant changing a well-ordered advance into a forlorn hope. But circumstances compelled it. There are moments when speed alone can save love's ...

— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse

... heavy hand of the criminal law of whatever country he inhabited. He had studied the criminal laws, so that he might be sure in his reckonings; but he had always felt that he might be carried by circumstances into deeper waters than he intended to enter. As the soldier who leads a forlorn hope, or as the diver who goes down for pearls, or as the searcher for wealth on fever-breeding coasts, knows that as his gains may be great, so are his perils, Melmotte had been aware that in his life, as it opened ...

— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope

... waiting at the gate, and they immediately conducted me to my own tents in the neighborhood. I have been in many dangerous predicaments before that time and since, but I don't care to deny that I felt in the present instance such a throbbing of the heart as I never have experienced when leading a forlorn hope, or marching up to ...

— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray

... hopes always died hard. "There's still the Government yacht," he said, going to a huge iron punt that lay far above high-water mark. Mac called it a forlorn hope, and it looked it, as it lay deeply ...

— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn

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