| 释义 |
last-ditch, a.
[See ditch n.1 5.]
Of opposition, resistance, etc.: maintained to the end. Of an effort, etc.: made at the last minute in an attempt to avert disaster. Also last-ˈditcher, one who fights to the last ditch; last-ˈditchery.
1909Westm. Gaz. 30 Jan. 2/1 The only part he is likely to take in the Social Revolution is to be what may be called a last-ditcher in the attempt to resist it. 1927Daily Express 19 Nov. 3/1 A constituency which is to be congratulated on a true last ditcher. 1928Daily Tel. 17 July 18/3 There are few performers who have decided not to broadcast. Almost the ‘last-ditcher’ is perhaps Harry Tate. 1932Mind XLI. 53 Formal Logic dies hard. It still commands the services of numbers of ‘last ditchers’. 1936‘J. Tey’ Shilling for Candles i. 6 ‘Might have walked into the water till she drowned,’ said Bill, who was a last-ditcher by nature. Ibid., ‘Might have died of an overdose of bulls-eyes,’ said Potticary, who approved of last ditchery in Arabia but found it boring to live with. 1951Koestler Age of Longing ii. i. 205, I would rather have been one of the last-ditchers at Thermopylae. 1951M. McLuhan Mech. Bride 44/1 A last-ditch stand of denuded minds. 1955Bull. Atomic Sci. Feb. 54/2 If the French in their last ditch stand at Dien Bien Phu had appealed for U.S. nuclear aid, there would have been similar reactions. 1961W. Vaughan-Thomas Anzio viii. 171 Some got as far as the Loyals manning their last-ditch line on the Lateral Road. 1961M. Beadle These Ruins are Inhabited (1963) vi. 76 All that defeated them was a last-ditch appeal. 1971Times 27 Apr. 9/5 Charlton himself surely was offside before McNab made his last ditch effort to recover the situation. 1973Times 27 Aug. 3/1 Colonel Gaddafi, the Libyan leader, today began a last-ditch attempt to forge a full union with Egypt after his unexpected arrival in Cairo. |