to have a prayer
3
7.4
- idiom
:
tener alguna posibilidad
- Without a solid plan, we don't have a prayer of winning this competition.
- have a prayer of getting
So in other words, they don't even want this line to have a prayer of of winding up in the show.
- So in other words, they don't even want this line to have a prayer of of winding up in the show.
- But if we don't have that, we don't even have a prayer of basically doing AI clinical trials.
- You're missing a lot of the elements to have a prayer of anybody writing you a check for your company, right.
- And every time I see the workers out there, my heart breaks, you know, because they really don't have a prayer if they just keep being hard working people.
- And so you and I don't have a prayer because money makes the world go round and the economy runs on money, like it or not.
- I am the CEO of my company and don't have a prayer in getting hired by it.
Examples
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And every time I see the workers out there, my heart breaks, you know, because they really don't have a prayer if they just keep being hard working people.
-
But if we don't have that, we don't even have a prayer of basically doing AI clinical trials.
-
We never had a prayer... of catching Slim in the first place.
-
And then I would say, you know, we have a prayer at Spartan.
-
You're missing a lot of the elements to have a prayer of anybody writing you a check for your company, right.
-
You didn't have a prayer.
-
Ridgeview may have a prayer!
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We didn't have a prayer.
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I am the CEO of my company and don't have a prayer in getting hired by it.
-
And so you and I don't have a prayer because money makes the world go round and the economy runs on money, like it or not.
How Likely
3
7.4
- Informal
5
8.4
Surface Forms
Morphology
have + a + prayer
The MWE relies on a metaphorical use of 'prayer' (as hope or a plea) combined with 'have', so a learner who knows both words could plausibly infer it means 'to have some hope or chance.' However, the conventionalized idiomatic sense — especially the nuance that the chance is typically very small and the fixed pattern 'have a prayer (of ...)' — is not fully predictable from the parts alone, making it only partially transparent.
Etymology
The phrase have a prayer comes from older religious sayings. To have a prayer meant you could ask God for help, so people used it to mean 'have a chance' even when success seemed very unlikely.