Idiom
bottom of the ninth
Meaning
By extension, any last chance or final opportunity.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Examples
“This is the bottom of the ninth for our team.”
“I need a miracle because it is the bottom of the ninth for my grade.”
“We are in the bottom of the ninth with this business deal.”
“With only one day left to submit the proposal, we knew we were at the bottom of the ninth.”
“The candidate is trailing in the polls, so this final televised debate is really the bottom of the ninth for her campaign.”
“After three failed attempts to fix the engine, the mechanic knew this last part was his bottom of the ninth.”
“As the negotiations dragged past midnight, the exhausted diplomats realized they had reached the bottom of the ninth, with mere hours to prevent the treaty from collapsing entirely.”
Examples
simple
“This is the bottom of the ninth for our team.”
“I need a miracle because it is the bottom of the ninth for my grade.”
“We are in the bottom of the ninth with this business deal.”
contextual
“With only one day left to submit the proposal, we knew we were at the bottom of the ninth.”
“The candidate is trailing in the polls, so this final televised debate is really the bottom of the ninth for her campaign.”
“After three failed attempts to fix the engine, the mechanic knew this last part was his bottom of the ninth.”
complex
“As the negotiations dragged past midnight, the exhausted diplomats realized they had reached the bottom of the ninth, with mere hours to prevent the treaty from collapsing entirely.”
Origin
From the scoreboard convention of placing the home team’s score below that of the visiting team, and the standard duration of nine innings in a baseball game. The term indicates the second half of the final inning, the point at which the home team has their final opportunity to bat.
Key words
Related idioms
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