beg for one's life

English

Verb

beg for one's life (third-person singular simple present begs for one's life, present participle begging for one's life, simple past and past participle begged for one's life)

1. (idiomatic) To plead or make a desperate attempt to continue with what one has been doing.
   • 1912 April, “Glorious News From Jersey”, in Shields' Magazine, volume 14, number 4, page 131:

     They got hearing after hearing. They begged for their lives; they pled for their millions invested in a "legitimate industry"; they told of the thousands of men who would be thrown out of employment if this bill should go through, and of the thousands of slaughtering machines owned by Jersey men, that would be confiscated if this bill should become a law.

   • 1932, National Convention of the Young Women's Christian Association of the U.S.A., page 232:

     If we have to draw on the resources of our communities, going about asking for parts of people's salaries and things of that kind, to meet emergency relief, and they tell us they cannot give any more for our program, it means that we must close our doors. In a way we are begging for our lives, hoping that each of us will go home and take up immediately this study of where our relief shall come from, so that we may lift the burden from our local communities.

   • 1999, The South Carolina Review - Volume 32, page 64:

     We, who clung to the coat-tails of foreigners, begging for their scraps, begging for our lives— we have remaining to us this one final degradation.

   • 2006, John Crouch, The Monocacy Legacy, page 220:

     Furthermore, our open publication of a proposal offering to abolish slavery will be viewed everywhere as an indication that the Confederacy is militarily and politically weak. Foreign nations will construe it as an admission that we're losing the war and we're begging for our lives.

   • 2011, Mr Moon Has Left the Stadium, page Jeremy Nicholas:

     Without me knowing, a meeting was convened at the ground on Monday where they begged for their lives. Scott granted their request for one last chance against the Wigan on the opening Saturday.

2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see beg,‎ life.
   • 1907, Sir Clements Robert Markham, King Edward VI, His Life and Character, page 207:

     But he abandoned all dignity when he begged for his life.