Hail Mary pass
4
8.4
- noun
- /heɪl ˈmɛri pæs/
- Informal
:
pase de Hail Mary
- With just seconds left on the clock, the quarterback threw a Hail Mary pass into the end zone, hoping for a miracle.
- 64-yard Hail Mary pass
- throw a Hail Mary pass
- last-second Hail Mary pass
He's going to be throwing Hail Mary passes often.
- He's going to be throwing Hail Mary passes often.
- It's their equivalent of a Hail Mary pass.
- But it was a Hail Mary pass and, and unfortunately for him, we succeeded.
- I throw the communication Hail Mary pass and they're just having a bad day.
- So I'd never meet them, but I meet a lot of people that, that was the Hail Mary pass.
Examples
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SEATTLE -- The Seahawks scored on the final play of the game on a 24-yard Hail Mary pass from Russell Wilson to Golden Tate to beat the Packers on Monday Night Football, 14-12.
Blog text (28) -
With the clock having expired in the last quarter, Seahawks QB Russell Wilson threw a 'Hail Mary' pass from his 24-yard line into the end zone.
Blog text (33) -
We need a Hail Mary pass.
-
We need a Hail Mary pass.
-
It's a Hail Mary pass, but..
-
In his words, this is a Hail Mary pass.
Fiction book (1996) -
Or do they launch the Hail Mary pass and hope everything falls into place?
Academic text (2007) -
Since nothing else was working, the brand decided to gather their resources and throw a Hail Mary pass.
Blog text (23) -
Last season's game came down to a Hail Mary pass, but the Hoosiers have still never defeated the Blue and White.
Blog text (11) -
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)
Synonyms
14
8.2
A last, desperate attempt made when nothing else works
Antonyms
Surface Forms
Morphology
The sense 'a desperate, long last-ditch throw/effort' cannot be deduced from the literal parts: 'hail' (a greeting), 'Mary' (a name) and 'pass' (a throw). The idiom arises from the Catholic 'Hail Mary' prayer and a culture-specific sports metaphor, so its meaning is culturally and historically mediated rather than compositionally predictable for a B1 learner who only knows the constituent words.
Etymology
Hail Mary pass comes from American football, where a team losing with only seconds left will throw a very long, risky pass toward the end zone in the hope of a miracle. Fans and players compared that small hope to the prayer Hail Mary, so the play—and now any desperate final attempt—was called a Hail Mary pass, meaning 'a final risky try'.