hiding to nothing

noun

A situation in which victory has little or no value, but defeat has a huge cost.

Ask AI about this wordChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

Meanings

nounhiding to nothing (plural hidings to nothing)

plural hidings to nothing

  1. UKidiomaticinformalA situation in which victory has little or no value, but defeat has a huge cost.

    This often makes it a nervous, hiding-to-nothing game in which disasters are so much more memorable than successes

    2003, Robin Birn, The international handbook of market research techniques, page 543
    4 more examples

    It would have been madness to encourage them to back the mare : in fact I was on a hiding to nothing whatever happened.

    1915, James Forman Sloan, A. Dick Luckman, Tod Sloan, page 245

    No legitimate excuse for introduction existed, or could exist, and the odds looked like a hiding to nothing should Bayard attempt to force a meeting […]

    1931, The Atlantic Monthly, Making of America Project, page 60

    It is a nasty situation and DFR knows that he is on a good hiding to nothing. He sometimes feels that he is the least understood and most unloved ATCO in [the UK]

    1989, Dave Graves, A layman's guide to United Kingdom air traffic control, page 76

    Company directors are on a hiding to nothing when it comes to trusting their reputations to the accounting statements for which they are responsible.

    2003, Frank L. Clarke with G. W. Dean and Kyle Gaius Oliver, Corporate collapse: accounting, regulatory and ethical failure, page 39

Origin

From horse racing, hiding (“beating”); to (“as used to express gambling odds”), e.g., 6 to 1. Literally, the phrase can be described as to bet on a contest whose outcome is at worst a beating, or at best nothing. A heavily favoured team in a sporting contest earns no credit for victory, but is shamed by defeat; this team is said to be on a hiding to nothing.

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

hiding to nothing. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/hiding%20to%20nothing

MLA

“hiding to nothing.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/hiding%20to%20nothing. Accessed November 5, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “hiding to nothing,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/hiding%20to%20nothing.

Source: hiding to nothing on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.