"like one's life depended on it" meaning in English

See like one's life depended on it in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Prepositional phrase

Audio: En-au-like one's life depended on it.ogg [Australia]
Head templates: {{head|en|prepositional phrase|head=}} like one's life depended on it, {{en-PP}} like one's life depended on it
  1. (idiomatic, simile) Desperately. Tags: idiomatic Related terms: for the life of one, to save one's life, as if there were no tomorrow Translations (desperately): henkensä edestä (Finnish), comme si sa vie en dépendait (French), mintha az élete múlna rajta (Hungarian), jakby od tego zależało życie (Polish), como si su vida dependiera de ello (Spanish), hayatı buna bağlıymış gibi (Turkish)
    Sense id: en-like_one's_life_depended_on_it-en-prep_phrase-y9xy6EoY Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, English similes

Alternative forms

Download JSON data for like one's life depended on it meaning in English (2.3kB)

{
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "prepositional phrase",
        "head": ""
      },
      "expansion": "like one's life depended on it",
      "name": "head"
    },
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "like one's life depended on it",
      "name": "en-PP"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "prep_phrase",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English similes",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2011 January 5, Jonathan Stevenson, “Arsenal 0 - 0 Man City”, in BBC",
          "text": "With Carlos Tevez chasing down every lost cause like his life depended on it, City always had an out ball but Arsenal had such a monopoly on possession that they barely had to give thought even to the Argentine.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Desperately."
      ],
      "id": "en-like_one's_life_depended_on_it-en-prep_phrase-y9xy6EoY",
      "links": [
        [
          "Desperately",
          "desperately"
        ]
      ],
      "qualifier": "simile",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, simile) Desperately."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "for the life of one"
        },
        {
          "word": "to save one's life"
        },
        {
          "word": "as if there were no tomorrow"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "desperately",
          "word": "henkensä edestä"
        },
        {
          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "sense": "desperately",
          "word": "comme si sa vie en dépendait"
        },
        {
          "code": "hu",
          "lang": "Hungarian",
          "sense": "desperately",
          "word": "mintha az élete múlna rajta"
        },
        {
          "code": "pl",
          "lang": "Polish",
          "sense": "desperately",
          "word": "jakby od tego zależało życie"
        },
        {
          "code": "es",
          "lang": "Spanish",
          "sense": "desperately",
          "word": "como si su vida dependiera de ello"
        },
        {
          "code": "tr",
          "lang": "Turkish",
          "sense": "desperately",
          "word": "hayatı buna bağlıymış gibi"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
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      "audio": "En-au-like one's life depended on it.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/b/b7/En-au-like_one%27s_life_depended_on_it.ogg/En-au-like_one%27s_life_depended_on_it.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b7/En-au-like_one%27s_life_depended_on_it.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "word": "like one's life depended on it"
}
{
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "prepositional phrase",
        "head": ""
      },
      "expansion": "like one's life depended on it",
      "name": "head"
    },
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "like one's life depended on it",
      "name": "en-PP"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "prep_phrase",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "for the life of one"
    },
    {
      "word": "to save one's life"
    },
    {
      "word": "as if there were no tomorrow"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English prepositional phrases",
        "English similes",
        "English terms with audio links",
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2011 January 5, Jonathan Stevenson, “Arsenal 0 - 0 Man City”, in BBC",
          "text": "With Carlos Tevez chasing down every lost cause like his life depended on it, City always had an out ball but Arsenal had such a monopoly on possession that they barely had to give thought even to the Argentine.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Desperately."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "Desperately",
          "desperately"
        ]
      ],
      "qualifier": "simile",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic, simile) Desperately."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "audio": "En-au-like one's life depended on it.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/b/b7/En-au-like_one%27s_life_depended_on_it.ogg/En-au-like_one%27s_life_depended_on_it.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b7/En-au-like_one%27s_life_depended_on_it.ogg",
      "tags": [
        "Australia"
      ],
      "text": "Audio (AU)"
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "desperately",
      "word": "henkensä edestä"
    },
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "desperately",
      "word": "comme si sa vie en dépendait"
    },
    {
      "code": "hu",
      "lang": "Hungarian",
      "sense": "desperately",
      "word": "mintha az élete múlna rajta"
    },
    {
      "code": "pl",
      "lang": "Polish",
      "sense": "desperately",
      "word": "jakby od tego zależało życie"
    },
    {
      "code": "es",
      "lang": "Spanish",
      "sense": "desperately",
      "word": "como si su vida dependiera de ello"
    },
    {
      "code": "tr",
      "lang": "Turkish",
      "sense": "desperately",
      "word": "hayatı buna bağlıymış gibi"
    }
  ],
  "word": "like one's life depended on it"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-26 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (93a6c53 and 21a9316). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.