every man for himself
- idiom
- Informal
:
cada uno por su cuenta
- During the storm, it was truly every man for himself as people scrambled for safety.
Examples
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They wanted every man for himself.
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It's every man for himself out here!
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In the wilderness, when food became scarce, it felt like every man for himself.
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When the company went bankrupt, it became every man for himself among the employees.
Synonyms
16
5.6
Look after yourself without help from others
12
4.2
Able to live and support yourself without help from others
5
4.4
To support yourself without help from other people
Antonyms
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase literally combines 'every' (each) + 'man' (person) + 'for himself' (for one's own benefit), so a B1 learner who knows the constituent words can readily infer it means each person must look after themselves. The same compositional logic exists in many languages (e.g., Spanish 'cada uno por sí'), supporting immediate understandability rather than idiomatic opacity.
Etymology
Every man for himself may come from scenes of sudden danger, like a sinking ship or a burning building, where every man tries to save himself and pushes others aside. So, it now means 'each person must act or survive alone'.