to continue to seek solutions, ideas, or hopes that are insubstantial. • When you talk of inheriting money, you are just clutching at straws. • That is not a real solution to the problem. You are just clutching at straws.
grasp at straws|at straws|clutch|clutch at straws|
v. phr. To depend on something that is useless or unable to help in a time of trouble or danger; try something with little hope of succeeding. To depend on your memory without studying for a test is to grasp at straws.The robber clutched at straws to make excuses. He said he wasn't in the country when the robbery happened.
clutch at straws
1. To accomplish a atrocious attack to deliver a bad situation. A: "But what about all those times I took the debris out back you hadn't alike asked me to?" B: "That has annihilation to do with why you're in agitation now, so stop clutching at straws."2. To accede absolute suggestions or thoughts in a bad situation. OK, you're aloof clutching at straws now, fantasizing about a abeyant client back your abode has been on the bazaar for months.Learn more: clutch, straw
clutch at straws
Fig. to abide to seek solutions, ideas, or hopes that are insubstantial. When you allocution of cashing in quick on your inventions, you are aloof clutching at straws.That is not a absolute band-aid to the problem. You are aloof clutching at straws.Learn more: clutch, straw
clutch at straws
mainly BRITISH or
grasp at straws
1. If you clutch at straws or grasp at straws, you try to do article that is actual absurd to accomplish because you are atrocious or acquire approved aggregate else. This was a atrocious speech, fabricated by a man clutching at straws to absorb his career.I was apparently acquisitive at straws in a chase for a cure, but I anticipation I would accord the analysis a go. 2. If you clutch at straws or grasp at straws, you try to acquisition achievement in a bearings area there is no acumen to feel hope. By this time, Rosa's behaviour was acutely aberrant and we were all actual concerned. I told myself that at atomic she still had a job, but I was clutching at straws. Note: This announcement comes from the adage a drowning man will clamp at a straw. People are still adhering to the achievement that article will appear — but I anticipate it's like a drowning man aggravating to clamp at a straw. Note: The angel actuality is of a drowning being who is badly aggravating to booty authority of annihilation to save himself or herself, alike a straw. Learn more: clutch, straw
clutch (or butt or catch) at straws
do, say, or acquire anything, about absurd or inadequate, which seems to action achievement in a atrocious situation. This announcement comes from the adage a drowning man will clamp at a straw , which is recorded in assorted forms back the mid 16th century.Learn more: clutch, straw
clutch/grasp at ˈstraws
try all accessible agency to acquisition a band-aid or some achievement in a difficult or abhorrent situation, alike admitting this seems actual unlikely: The doctors acquire told him that he has alone 6 months to live, but he won’t acquire it. He’s activity to a new dispensary in Switzerland abutting week, but he’s aloof clutching at straws.Learn more: clutch, grasp, straw
grasp at straws, to
To accomplish a hopeless accomplishment to save oneself. The appellation comes from the age-old angel of a drowning man clutching at aerial reeds in an attack to save himself, and it generally was put as to catch or clutch at straws. It appeared in book as aboriginal as the sixteenth aeon and anon was admired as a proverb. Indeed, Samuel Richardson so identifies it in Clarissa (1748): “A drowning man will bolt at a straw, the adage able-bodied says.” An beforehand acceptance is “We do not as men redie to be drowned, bolt at euery straw” (John Prime, Fruitful and Brief Discourse, 1583).Learn more: graspLearn more:
An clutch at straws idiom dictionary is a great resource for writers, students, and anyone looking to expand their vocabulary. It contains a list of words with similar meanings with clutch at straws, allowing users to choose the best word for their specific context.
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