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full-court press

full-court press

2 5.1
A strong, aggressive effort to reach a goal quickly, often to win support
  • noun
  • /fʊl kɔrt prɛs/
  • Informal
translation icon : esfuerzo total
  • The team applied a full-court press, trying to rally support from every corner of the community.
  • put on a full-court press
  • call a full-court press
  • full-court press for health

So when he's pursuing you, he's on the full court press.

Examples

  • If you are the S and entry shuttle team, it's like playing basketball, full court press all the time.

  • Creating turnovers in the full court press will be a must for Charlotte to compete tonight.

    Blog text (32)
  • The Rockets can still have salary cap room, and general manager Daryl Morey is maintaining his full-court press on his Orlando counterpart Rob Hennigan.

    Blog text (20)
  • After the setbacks, the organization launched a full-court press to secure funding for its new initiative.

  • In order to win the election, the candidates executed a full-court press to engage voters.

Antonyms

11 4.8

Showing little interest or effort

Showing little energy or interest and doing things slowly and carelessly

How Intense

full-court press
  • Informal
2 5.1
effort
1.0
attempt
1.0

Surface Forms

Morphology

full-court + press

The components give clear clues: 'full-court' (covering the whole court) plus 'press' (to apply pressure) together literally suggest an all-out, pervasive application of pressure, which maps onto the figurative sense of an intense effort. However, the expression relies on a specific sports tactic and a noun/figurative use of 'press' that a B1 learner may not automatically generalize, so the relation is partly but not fully predictable.

Etymology

Full-court press comes from basketball, where a team uses a full court press, meaning players defend across the whole court to keep constant pressure on the other team. So, the phrase now means 'a strong, all-out effort to reach a goal'.