"snowball's chance in hell" meaning in English

See snowball's chance in hell in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Audio: En-au-snowball's chance in hell.ogg Forms: a snowball's chance in hell [canonical]
Head templates: {{en-noun|?|head=a snowball's chance in hell}} a snowball's chance in hell
  1. (informal, hyperbolic, idiomatic) Little (if any) likelihood of occurrence or success. Tags: excessive, idiomatic, informal Related terms: a cat in hell's chance, a cold day in Hell, a snowflake's chance in hell, snowball's chance in heck, Chinaman's chance, first of never, when Hell freezes over, when pigs fly Translations (Little or no likelihood of occurrence or success): 希望渺茫 (xīwàng) (Chinese Mandarin), არავითარი შანსი (aravitari šansi) (Georgian), არანაირი შანსი (aranairi šansi) (Georgian), alle calende greche (Italian), quando gli asini voleranno (Italian), mai (Italian), när helvetet fryser till is (Swedish)

Inflected forms

Alternative forms

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "a snowball's chance in hell",
      "tags": [
        "canonical"
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    }
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      "args": {
        "1": "?",
        "head": "a snowball's chance in hell"
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      "expansion": "a snowball's chance in hell",
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  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
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          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
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        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Terms with Georgian translations",
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        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Terms with Italian translations",
          "parents": [],
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        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Terms with Mandarin translations",
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          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Terms with Swedish translations",
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        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "That small boat has a snowball's chance in hell of surviving the hurricane.",
          "type": "example"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Little (if any) likelihood of occurrence or success."
      ],
      "id": "en-snowball's_chance_in_hell-en-noun-fNQ-vWez",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(informal, hyperbolic, idiomatic) Little (if any) likelihood of occurrence or success."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "a cat in hell's chance"
        },
        {
          "word": "a cold day in Hell"
        },
        {
          "word": "a snowflake's chance in hell"
        },
        {
          "word": "snowball's chance in heck"
        },
        {
          "word": "Chinaman's chance"
        },
        {
          "word": "first of never"
        },
        {
          "word": "when Hell freezes over"
        },
        {
          "word": "when pigs fly"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "excessive",
        "idiomatic",
        "informal"
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "cmn",
          "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
          "roman": "xīwàng",
          "sense": "Little or no likelihood of occurrence or success",
          "word": "希望渺茫"
        },
        {
          "code": "ka",
          "lang": "Georgian",
          "roman": "aravitari šansi",
          "sense": "Little or no likelihood of occurrence or success",
          "word": "არავითარი შანსი"
        },
        {
          "code": "ka",
          "lang": "Georgian",
          "roman": "aranairi šansi",
          "sense": "Little or no likelihood of occurrence or success",
          "word": "არანაირი შანსი"
        },
        {
          "code": "it",
          "lang": "Italian",
          "sense": "Little or no likelihood of occurrence or success",
          "word": "alle calende greche"
        },
        {
          "code": "it",
          "lang": "Italian",
          "sense": "Little or no likelihood of occurrence or success",
          "word": "quando gli asini voleranno"
        },
        {
          "code": "it",
          "lang": "Italian",
          "sense": "Little or no likelihood of occurrence or success",
          "word": "mai"
        },
        {
          "code": "sv",
          "lang": "Swedish",
          "sense": "Little or no likelihood of occurrence or success",
          "word": "när helvetet fryser till is"
        }
      ]
    }
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  "word": "snowball's chance in hell"
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      "form": "a snowball's chance in hell",
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  ],
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  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "a cat in hell's chance"
    },
    {
      "word": "a cold day in Hell"
    },
    {
      "word": "a snowflake's chance in hell"
    },
    {
      "word": "snowball's chance in heck"
    },
    {
      "word": "Chinaman's chance"
    },
    {
      "word": "first of never"
    },
    {
      "word": "when Hell freezes over"
    },
    {
      "word": "when pigs fly"
    }
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        "English idioms",
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        "English nouns",
        "English nouns with unknown or uncertain plurals",
        "English singularia tantum",
        "English terms with usage examples",
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        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries",
        "Terms with Georgian translations",
        "Terms with Italian translations",
        "Terms with Mandarin translations",
        "Terms with Swedish translations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "That small boat has a snowball's chance in hell of surviving the hurricane.",
          "type": "example"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Little (if any) likelihood of occurrence or success."
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(informal, hyperbolic, idiomatic) Little (if any) likelihood of occurrence or success."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "excessive",
        "idiomatic",
        "informal"
      ]
    }
  ],
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  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "cmn",
      "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
      "roman": "xīwàng",
      "sense": "Little or no likelihood of occurrence or success",
      "word": "希望渺茫"
    },
    {
      "code": "ka",
      "lang": "Georgian",
      "roman": "aravitari šansi",
      "sense": "Little or no likelihood of occurrence or success",
      "word": "არავითარი შანსი"
    },
    {
      "code": "ka",
      "lang": "Georgian",
      "roman": "aranairi šansi",
      "sense": "Little or no likelihood of occurrence or success",
      "word": "არანაირი შანსი"
    },
    {
      "code": "it",
      "lang": "Italian",
      "sense": "Little or no likelihood of occurrence or success",
      "word": "alle calende greche"
    },
    {
      "code": "it",
      "lang": "Italian",
      "sense": "Little or no likelihood of occurrence or success",
      "word": "quando gli asini voleranno"
    },
    {
      "code": "it",
      "lang": "Italian",
      "sense": "Little or no likelihood of occurrence or success",
      "word": "mai"
    },
    {
      "code": "sv",
      "lang": "Swedish",
      "sense": "Little or no likelihood of occurrence or success",
      "word": "när helvetet fryser till is"
    }
  ],
  "word": "snowball's chance in hell"
}

Download raw JSONL data for snowball's chance in hell meaning in English (2.8kB)

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  "section": "English",
  "subsection": "noun",
  "title": "snowball's chance in hell",
  "trace": ""
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-11-06 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-10-02 using wiktextract (fbeafe8 and 7f03c9b). 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.