eleventh hour
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English
[edit]Alternative forms
[edit]- eleventh-hour (attributive)
- 11th hour
Etymology
[edit]From a parable in the Bible of workmen hired at the eleventh hour (that is, late in the day), known as the Parable of the Workers of the Eleventh Hour or the Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard:
- King James Bible, Matthew 20:6 & 20:9:
- And about the eleventh hour he went out, and found others standing idle, and saith unto them, Why stand ye here all the day idle? [...] And when they came that were hired about the eleventh hour, they received every man a penny.
Pronunciation
[edit]Audio (General Australian): (file)
Noun
[edit]eleventh hour (countable and uncountable, plural eleventh hours)
- (idiomatic) A point in time which is nearly too late; the last minute.
- 1857, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 85, in The Virginians:
- If she repented, though at the eleventh hour, it was not too late.
- 1922 February, James Joyce, “[Episode 16]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company, […], →OCLC:
- Highly providential was the appearance on the scene of Corny Kelleher when Stephen was blissfully unconscious but for that man in the gap turning up at the eleventh hour the finish might have been that he might have been a candidate for the accident ward […]
- 1961, Philip Toynbee, Underdogs: Eighteen Victims of Society, page 56:
- I have extricated myself so far at many eleventh hours and perhaps there is some hope in this.
- 2009 March 3, Tony Karon, “Why Money Alone Will Not Fix Gaza”, in Time:
- Egypt had managed to bring the two sides to the brink of a deal two weeks ago, before internal political dynamics prompted the Israelis to back out at the eleventh hour.
- 2014, James Lambert, “A Much Tortured Expression: A New Look At `Hobson-Jobson'”, in International Journal of Lexicography, volume 27, number 1, page 59:
- Thus, the famous title of the dictionary is, at base, derogatory. This explains why Yule kept the title secret until the eleventh hour, why some contemporary reviewers took exception to the title, and why Yule highlighted Burnell’s approval of the title.
Usage notes
[edit]- Rarely used in the plural form and usually immediately preceded by the definite article, the.
- Usually used in phrases beginning with such prepositions as at or in.
Translations
[edit]The last minute
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