forlorn hope
Any dangerous or hopeless ventureAny dangerous or hopeless venture.
» When the emperor read the unfounded accusations, the citizens were forlorn of all hope.
rafaeld4 · Tatoeba · CC BY 2.0 FRMeaning
3 senses(broadly)Any dangerous or hopeless venture.
a hopeless or desperate enterprise
(archaic)A small troop of soldiers picked to make an advance attack, or the first attack; a storming party.
Verlorener Haufen
(archaic, obsolete)In the plural form forlorn hopes: the soldiers collectively making up such a troop; (by extension) a group of reckless adventurers.
Examples
1 sentencesWhen the emperor read the unfounded accusations, the citizens were forlorn of all hope.
Translations
4 languagesOrigin
Sense 1 (“troop of soldiers picked to make an advance attack, or the first attack”) is a mSense 1 (“troop of soldiers picked to make an advance attack, or the first attack”) is a mistranslation of Dutch verloren hoop (literally “lost troop”): verloren (“lost”, adjective) + hoop (“(obsolete) unit of soldiers, contingent; heap, pile, stack”), mistaking the latter word for the homograph hoop (“hope”). Verloren is the past participle of verliezen (“to lose (possession); to be defeated, to lose (a game)”) (ultimately from Proto-Germanic *fraleusaną (“to cease to have, lose”), from Proto-Indo-European *per- (“before, in front; first”) + *lewH- (“to cut, sever; to separate; to loosen; to lose”)), while hoop is ultimately from Proto-Germanic *haupaz (“a crowd, throng; a heap, pile”), from Proto-Indo-European *kouHp-nó- or *keHup-.
Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · source
Forms
plural: forlorn hopes| Singular | forlorn hope |
|---|---|
| Plural | forlorn hopes |
regular
Word family
1 related wordsSee also
neighbours in the dictionaryDictionary text adapted from Wiktionary (Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0) and Open English WordNet / Princeton WordNet (CC BY 4.0, WordNet License); shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. Example sentences and recordings are credited where they appear.