not have a prayer in English

[Show JSON for postprocessed kaikki.org data shown on this page ▼] [Hide JSON for postprocessed kaikki.org data shown on this page ▲]

{
  "etymology_text": "Implies that not even divine intervention could save the person.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "verb"
      },
      "expansion": "not have a prayer",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "When the lights went dark in their flooded compartment, the submariners knew that they did not have a prayer.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1995, John Schwarzwelder, The Simpsons, season 6, episode 14 \"Bart's Comet\", spoken by Reverend Lovejoy (Harry Shearer):",
          "text": "It's all over, people! We don't have a prayer!",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To have no chance or possibility, usually in the face of peril or adversity."
      ],
      "id": "en-not_have_a_prayer-en-verb-0dttKkR2",
      "links": [
        [
          "chance",
          "chance"
        ],
        [
          "possibility",
          "possibility"
        ],
        [
          "face",
          "face"
        ],
        [
          "peril",
          "peril"
        ],
        [
          "adversity",
          "adversity"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(informal, idiomatic) To have no chance or possibility, usually in the face of peril or adversity."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "doomed"
        },
        {
          "word": "hopeless"
        },
        {
          "word": "screwed"
        },
        {
          "word": "up the creek"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic",
        "informal"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "not have a prayer"
}

[Show JSON for raw wiktextract data ▼] [Hide JSON for raw wiktextract data ▲]

{
  "etymology_text": "Implies that not even divine intervention could save the person.",
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "verb"
      },
      "expansion": "not have a prayer",
      "name": "head"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "doomed"
    },
    {
      "word": "hopeless"
    },
    {
      "word": "screwed"
    },
    {
      "word": "up the creek"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English idioms",
        "English informal terms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English terms with usage examples",
        "English verbs",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "When the lights went dark in their flooded compartment, the submariners knew that they did not have a prayer.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1995, John Schwarzwelder, The Simpsons, season 6, episode 14 \"Bart's Comet\", spoken by Reverend Lovejoy (Harry Shearer):",
          "text": "It's all over, people! We don't have a prayer!",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To have no chance or possibility, usually in the face of peril or adversity."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "chance",
          "chance"
        ],
        [
          "possibility",
          "possibility"
        ],
        [
          "face",
          "face"
        ],
        [
          "peril",
          "peril"
        ],
        [
          "adversity",
          "adversity"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(informal, idiomatic) To have no chance or possibility, usually in the face of peril or adversity."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic",
        "informal"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "not have a prayer"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-01-13 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-01-01 using wiktextract (4ba5975 and 4ed51a5). 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.

"not have a prayer" meaning in English

Verb