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Glite Dictionary
eleventh-hour decision

eleventh-hour decision

5.2
A decision someone makes at the last possible moment before a deadline
  • noun
translation icon : decisión de último momento
  • Her eleventh-hour decision to apply changed the course of her career.

Examples

  • Thanks to an eleventh-hour decision, the flight was saved from cancellation.

  • The team made an eleventh-hour decision to change the presentation topic.

  • The team made an eleventh-hour decision to change the project scope.

  • Why did you wait until the last minute for an eleventh-hour decision?

  • The committee reached an eleventh-hour decision to change the venue for the conference just days before it was scheduled to start.

  • After considering various options, they finally made an eleventh-hour decision to extend the deadline for the project.

  • The company announced an eleventh-hour decision to cut prices, hoping to attract more customers before the holidays.

Synonyms

last-minute decision
vseleventh-hour decision
2 3.5

A choice someone makes very late, just before something happens

is made at the last possible moment before a deadline or crisis
last-gasp decision
vseleventh-hour decision
7.5

A decision made at the very last moment as a desperate effort

is chosen at the last possible moment without the desperate urgency

Antonyms

premature
120 4.5

Happening before the usual time or before it is ready

How Late

belated
18 4.4
eleventh-hour decision
5.2
timely
111 3.0

Surface Forms

eleventh-hour decision singular
eleventh-hour decisions plural

Morphology

eleventh-hour + decision

The compound 'eleventh-hour' is built from 'eleventh' (an ordinal) and 'hour' (a time unit), so learners who know those words can often infer a sense of lateness or a very late time. However, the precise idiomatic meaning 'at the last possible moment' depends on a conventional metaphor/cultural usage and is not strictly predictable from the parts, so a B1 learner may not reliably derive the full sense without prior exposure.

Etymology

Eleventh-hour decision comes from the idea of the eleventh hour on a clock, the hour just before the last one. So it means 'a decision made at the last possible moment'.