lost cause
noun [C usually singular]Definition
› someone or something that has no chance of succeeding: I used to try to get him to do some exercise but then decided he was a lost cause.FailuresAccidents and disastersHigher and lower points of achievement
(Definition of lost cause noun from the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus
© Cambridge University Press)
Browse related topics
You are looking at an entry to do with Failures, but you might be interested in these topics from the Doing and achieving topic area:
- Abstaining and refraining
- Acting and acts
- Avoiding action
- Becoming better
- Cancelling and interrupting
- Competing and contending (non-sporting)
- Coping and not coping
- Delaying and wasting time
- Describing the leading position
- Efficient and effective
- Expressions telling people to hurry up
- Failing and doing badly
- Getting involved for one's own benefit or against others' will
- Hesitating
- Higher and lower points of achievement
- Hurrying and doing things quickly
- Making progress and advancing
- Making things better
- Performing a function
- Potential
- Reacting and responding
- Repeating an action
- Succeeding, achieving and fulfilling
- Success and achievements
- Successful (things or people)
- Surpassing in quality or number
- Taking part and getting involved
- Trying and making an effort
- Unsuccessful (people and things)
- Waiting
- Ways of achieving things
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SMART Thesaurus
Synonyms and related words:
- a dog's breakfast idiom
- another/the final nail in the coffin idiom
- bomb noun (FAILURE)
- cock-up noun
- collapse noun (FAILURE)
- crash noun (FAILURE)
- dead duck noun
- dead loss noun
- false start noun (PROBLEM)
- lemon noun (STUPID PERSON/THING)
- lulu noun
- mess noun (PROBLEMS)
- mess-up noun
- might-have-been noun
- miss noun (NOT HIT)
- mockery noun
- tailspin noun
- underachiever noun
- undoing noun
- washout noun (FAILURE)
Topic:
Failures
Word of the Day
throw caution to the wind/winds
to do something without worrying about the risk or negative results
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