lost cause
Doomed from start
A lost cause is an effort or goal that has no realistic chance of success.
The phrase often appears when someone persists despite inevitable failure: Trying to change his mind is a lost cause.
It can also describe a person beyond help or reform: He's a lost cause when it comes to punctuality.
In American history, the Lost Cause refers to the post–Civil War ideology romanticizing the Confederacy.
Beyond possibility of success
- pointlessLacking any purpose
- futileIncapable of producing results
- fruitlessProducing no useful outcome
- uselessWithout practical value
vain · ineffective · unavailing · unwinnable · no-win · dead-end · doomed · irredeemable
Secessionist Southern government
- secessionFormal withdrawal from union
- Civil WarCountrymen fighting countrymen
- antebellumBefore a war's start
- revisionismReexamining established doctrine
Consent to receive
- surrenderCease resistance, yield
- capitulationComplete yielding to demands
- giving upChoosing to stop trying
- defeatismAcceptance of inevitable failure
fatalism · acquiescence · throwing in the towel · conceding · letting go · moving on · walking away · coming to terms
hopeless
Beyond possibility of success
- pointlessLacking any purpose
- futileIncapable of producing results
- fruitlessProducing no useful outcome
useless · vain · ineffective · unavailing · unwinnable · no-win · dead-end · doomed · irredeemable · unsalvageable
Confederacy
Secessionist Southern government
- secessionFormal withdrawal from union
- Civil WarCountrymen fighting countrymen
- antebellumBefore a war's start
acceptance
Consent to receive
- surrenderCease resistance, yield
- capitulationComplete yielding to demands
- giving upChoosing to stop trying
defeatism · fatalism · acquiescence · throwing in the towel · conceding · letting go · moving on · walking away · coming to terms · stoicism
vanquished
Defeated completely
routed · overthrown · decimated · trounced · failed · unsuccessful · foiled · thwarted · fallen · sinking ship
- futilityfutile, futility, in vain, pointlessness, vain
- futile argumentscircular argument, beating dead horse, going in circles, dead end, moot point
- despairdespair, hopelessness, desolation, despondency, dejection
- failuresfailure, failures, flop, flops, bust
- futilefutile, useless, pointless, fruitless, vain
- giving upgive up, giving up, quit, quitting, surrender
lost causesure thing
Guaranteed outcome or agreement
safe bet · slam dunk · fighting chance · foregone conclusion · done deal
lost causebeacon of hope
ray of hope · glimmer of hope · silver lining · light at the end of the tunnel
lose, lost, loss, cause, loser, losing, losses, loses, losers