lost cause

1. 1.

   a defeated cause or a cause for which defeat is inevitable

   Broadercampaign

Questions about lost cause

What does lost cause mean?

lost cause means "a defeated cause or a cause for which defeat is inevitable".

Is lost cause a common word?

lost cause is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.