Hail Mary
14
8.2
- noun
- /heɪl ˈmɛri/
- Informal
:
intento desesperado
- It's a Hail Mary pass, but..
- Hail Mary pass
It's sort of a relationship Hail Mary pass.
- It's sort of a relationship Hail Mary pass.
- Number one, there is that idea of throwing the relationship Hail Mary pass.
- And so is yours insight that people on the left don't need to throw Hail Marys if they're the ones that are in power.
- He's going to be throwing Hail Mary passes often.
- But it was a Hail Mary pass and, and unfortunately for him, we succeeded.
- Listen, I sometimes Hail Mary passes do go in the hoop.
- And so I basically do what I call is throw the Hail Mary and for instance, right?
- That is his number one only thing left, his last Hail Mary desperation.
- No, you're about to see what APE is a Hail Mary.
- You think this is just a, a Hail Mary help.
- We all talk about what Aaron Rodgers and his little Hail Mary.
- We got to beat him again and they threw like a Hail Mary ish play like right before it.
Examples
-
The only thing standing between victory and defeat... is a successful Hail Mary.
-
This post is my Plan B, my Hail Mary, my long shot.
-
We need a Hail Mary pass.
-
We'll look for a Hail Mary.
-
In his words, this is a Hail Mary pass.
Fiction book (1996) -
Well, yeah, yeah, I think it was a a Hail Mary desperate play at the end of the game.
-
The Seattle Seahawks scored a Hail Mary touchdown on you, on fourth and 10 no less, with 7 seconds left in a game.
Blog text (28) -
In honor of Doug Flutie's legendary Hail Mary, we're going to rank some of the best Hail Marys of all time.
-
The recent rants and raves by the Prime Minister and the Finance Minister that the ECB should buy their debt without limit are an obvious last-ditch Hail Mary pass before the plunge into the financial abyss begins.
Blog text (13) -
After exhausting all other options, the team made one final desperate attempt to win the game, a true Hail Mary play.
Synonyms
14
5.7
An extreme action you take when all other options fail
4
8.4
A risky final attempt to succeed when little time remains
3
5.8
A final effort you make when nothing else works
1
6.4
A final desperate try to succeed when success seems unlikely
Antonyms
How Risky
- Informal
14
8.2
- Informal
58
4.6
65
3.5
271
5.1
47
4.6
Surface Forms
Morphology
hail + Mary
The idiomatic sense 'a final, desperate attempt' comes from the Catholic prayer and metaphorical use in contexts like football; knowing 'hail' (greet/praise) and 'Mary' (a proper name) does not let a B1 learner deduce this meaning. The sense is culturally and idiomatically conditioned rather than compositionally derived, so it is not predictable from the constituents.
Etymology
Hail Mary for a 'last desperate attempt' comes from American football, where players and fans would say the prayer before a very long, hopeful pass at the end of a game. The image of that one final, risky throw is why the phrase now means 'a last desperate attempt'.