eleventh hour
the last possible moment for doing something: to change plans at the eleventh hour.
Origin of eleventh hour
1Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024
How to use eleventh hour in a sentence
All this has created an outpouring of national sentiment and a predictable flurry of eleventh-hour government initiatives.
Former Miss Venezuela Murdered In Roadside Attack | Mac Margolis | January 9, 2014 | THE DAILY BEASTShe won an Emmy in 1963 for an episode of The eleventh hour.
The Deaths You Missed This Year | Malcolm Jones, Jimmy So, Michael Moynihan, Caitlin Dickson | December 30, 2013 | THE DAILY BEASTNo more eleventh-hour miracles—the inevitable finally has to happen.
‘Homeland’ Finale Shocker: A Death in the Family | Andrew Romano | December 16, 2013 | THE DAILY BEASTIn fact Kennedy and Khrushchev did bend the bars just enough to reach out to each other at the eleventh hour.
Three Great Men Died That Day: JFK, C.S. Lewis, and Aldous Huxley | John Garth | November 3, 2013 | THE DAILY BEASTA lot of what is going on is “political grandstanding,” Obama said, and generally the crisis is averted at the eleventh hour.
Iran, Yes. Congress, No. Obama Won’t Budge for Hardliners at Home | Eleanor Clift | September 28, 2013 | THE DAILY BEAST
To go back on it, and at the eleventh hour, would proclaim him weak and vacillating, and the effect might be as Strachan said.
The Courier of the Ozarks | Byron A. DunnThe whole being recoiled now, at the eleventh hour, as a fierce wild creature that one tries to bury alive.
The Daughters of Danaus | Mona CairdAnd this eleventh-hour reminder gave him the excuse which later, in his superconscientiousness, he deemed a necessity.
The Tigress | Anne WarnerThou shalt not at the eleventh hour begin to hunt material for thy paper.
The Complete Club Book for Women | Caroline French BentonIt came now, kindly, friendly and even affectionate, at the very eleventh hour.
The Imaginary Marriage | Henry St. John Cooper
British Dictionary definitions for eleventh hour
the latest possible time; last minute
(as modifier): an eleventh-hour decision
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Cultural definitions for eleventh hour
The last minute: “The water bombers arrived at the eleventh hour — just in time to prevent the forest fire from engulfing the town.”
The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
Other Idioms and Phrases with eleventh hour
The latest possible time, as in We turned in our report at the eleventh hour. This term is thought to allude to the parable of the laborers (Matthew 20:1–16), in which those workers hired at the eleventh hour of a twelve-hour working day were paid the same amount as those who began in the first hour. [Early 1800s]
The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
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