as if one's life depended on it
Utterly without reservation
With maximum effort and urgency, as though failure would be fatal.
The phrase intensifies any verb describing exertion: She ran as if her life depended on it.
Often hyperbolic—the stakes are rarely actual survival, but the expression conveys total commitment: He studied for the exam as if his life depended on it.
- desperationUtter loss of hope
- fight-or-flightAcute threat reaction
- self-preservationInstinct to survive danger
- gut instinctImmediate unreasoned knowing
- hasteExcessive quickness
giving 110% · balls to the wall · no holds barred · franticness · anxiety · necessity · immediacy · against the clock · life-and-death · sink or swim · fear · fervor · do-or-die · obsession · single-mindedness · hope · vigilance · zeal
as if one's life depended on ithalfheartedly
Without real interest
casually · lazily · half-heartedly · listlessly · apathetically
as if one's life depended on itnonchalantly
With studied indifference
dispassionately · coolly · indifferently · carelessly · matter-of-factly
oneself, lifelike, lifelong, lifetime, depend, depends, depended, depending, dependent