devil take the hindmost

alternative Devil take the hindmost · alternative the Devil take the hindmost · alternative the devil take the hindmost

1. An imprecation that everyone should look after their own interests, leaving those who cannot cope to whatever fate befalls them.

   Choose your hand, try your best. He who wins, wins it all. Devil take the hindmost.

   2010, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Love Never Dies, Song nr. 22

   5 more examples

   What if a toy take um ith heeles now, and they runn all away, and cry the Divell take the hindmoſt.

   c. 1608–1610 (date written), Francis Beaumont, Iohn Fletcher, Philaster, or Love Lies a Bleeding. […], 4th edition, London: […] VV[illiam] J[ones] for Richard Hawkins, […], published 1634, →OCLC, Act V, page 66

   Land Alianable which would bring in the Stock Jobbing Temper, the Devill take the Hindmost.

   1742, James Oglethorpe, “Letter to the Honorable Trustees”, in Lucian Lamar Knight, Kenneth Coleman, Milton Ready, editors, The Colonial Records of the State of Georgia, volume 23, published 1914

   Then, horn for horn, they stretch an strive: Deil tak the hindmost, on they drive, Till a’ their weel-swall’d kytes belyve Are bent like drums; The auld Guidman, maist like to rive, ‘Bethankit’ hums.

   1786, Robert Burns, Address to a Haggis

   And [we] coldly see the all-conquering valiant Sons of Toil sit enchanted, by the million, in their Poor-Law Bastille, as if this were Nature’s Law;—mumbling to ourselves some vague janglement of Laissez-faire, Supply-and-demand, Cash-payment the one nexus of man to man: Free-trade, Competition, and Devil take the hindmost, our latest Gospel yet preached!

   1843 April, Thomas Carlyle, “Two Centuries”, in Past and Present, American edition, Boston, Mass.: Charles C[offin] Little and James Brown, published 1843, →OCLC, book III (The Modern Worker), page 170

   "Oh, don't talk to me about your socialists, I've got no patience with them," she cried. "It only means that another lot of lazy loafers will make a good thing out of the working classes. My motto is, leave me alone; I don't want anyone interfering with me; I'll make the best of a bad job, and the devil take the hindmost."

   1915, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, chapter CVIII, in Of Human Bondage, New York, N.Y.: George H[enry] Doran Company, →OCLC, page 572

1. Alternative letter-case form of devil take the hindmost.

   Kells gave her a tender look. She was so reckless, so gallant, his fiery lady. She took every fence at a gallop, she flung her heart over, Devil take the hindmost.

   1986 September, Valerie Sherwood [pseudonym; Jeanne Hines], chapter 5, in Nightsong, New York, N.Y.: Pocket Books, →ISBN, page 91

   2 more examples

   And [we] coldly see the all-conquering valiant Sons of Toil sit enchanted, by the million, in their Poor-Law Bastille, as if this were Nature’s Law;—mumbling to ourselves some vague janglement of Laissez-faire, Supply-and-demand, Cash-payment the one nexus of man to man: Free-trade, Competition, and Devil take the hindmost, our latest Gospel yet preached!

   1843 April, Thomas Carlyle, “Two Centuries”, in Past and Present, American edition, Boston, Mass.: Charles C[offin] Little and James Brown, published 1843, →OCLC, book III (The Modern Worker), page 170

   She turned to greet the knock on the door a moment before it fell, the shadows already telling her who was there. Bearing a bottle of wine and a pair of long-stemmed glasses, and a tentative expression. Carel. “Fuck.” Seeker raked one hand through her hair. “All right. I’ll do it. Eyes wide open and Devil take the hindmost.”

   2006 July, Elizabeth Bear [pseudonym; Sarah Kindred], Blood and Iron (The Promethean Age; 1), New York, N.Y.: Roc, →ISBN, page 246