Hobson's choice
1
8.4
- noun
- /ˈhɑːb.sənz ˈtʃɔɪs/
- Informal
:
elección de Hobson
- Too bad the Republican Party rejected that when they booed Ron Paul for daring to suggest formulating foreign policy based upon those precepts... and the Democrats chose to reject the creator from their platform... we are faced with Hobson's choice.
Examples
-
The Court thus presented states with a Hobson's choice: "become a dumper and ship as much waste as possible into a less populated state, or become a dumpee, and stoically accept waste from more densely populated states."
Academic text (1995) -
We had a real Hobson's choice on our hands.
-
Limited resources require a Hobson's choice of priorities.
Academic text (1992) -
For traditional Republicans, it's a Hobson's choice.
Blog text (31) -
Kaye Scholer was presented with a Hobson's choice.
Academic text (1999) -
Indeed, the candidates seem to have accepted Dobbs' variation on Hobson's choice—either reject NAFTA or suffer decline as a candidate and as a nation.
Academic text (2008) -
When the company announced layoffs without offering any alternatives, employees felt they had a Hobson's choice between accepting severance pay or facing unemployment.
-
The new law left residents with a Hobson's choice of paying higher taxes or losing essential public services.
-
After the school budget cuts, parents faced a Hobson's choice of either contributing more money or seeing extracurricular activities eliminated.
Synonyms
445
1.4
A situation in which you must do something because nothing else is possible
Antonyms
How Difficult
- Formal
- US
- Informal
1
8.4
12
1.6
Surface Forms
Morphology
Hobson's + choice
This is an eponymous idiom: the first element is a proper name with no independent lexical meaning a learner can compose with 'choice'. Knowing 'choice' alone does not yield the specific sense 'take it or leave it/only one real option'—the meaning is historically and culturally specific and therefore not derivable from its parts.
Etymology
Hobson's choice comes from a stable owner who made customers take the horse nearest the door or have no horse at all. So, a 'Hobson's choice' now means you have only one real option: 'take it or have nothing'.