lost cause

plural lost causes

1. idiomaticA person or thing that is hopeless or futile.

   He has already made up his mind, and it's a lost cause to try to change it.

   3 more examples

   Kei knew that the stepgirls saw her as a worrywart, that when it came to having fun, they had written her off as a lost cause.

   2003, Mako Yoshikawa, “New Jersey, 1974–82”, in Once Removed, New York, N.Y.: Bantam Books, →ISBN, pages 67–68

   Artfully pulling the ball back to leave McCleary chasing a lost cause, Sánchez calmly made space for a shot and applied a finish that beat the despairing dives of both Federici and Michael Hector, the latter vainly attempting to recover position when it was too late.

   2015 April 18, Paul Wilson, The Guardian

   I get the sense that it's a lost cause / I get the sense that you might really love her / This text gon' be evidence, this text is evidence / I tried to ration with you, no murders or crimes of passion, but damn

   2022, “Kill Bill”, in SOS, performed by SZA

   Synonyms: sinking ship

1. The belief that the Confederate cause during the American Civil War was just and not related to slavery.

   Also implicit was the idea that all southerners accepted the basic tenets of the Lost Cause myth and concurred in this celebration of the Confederacy.

   1993 April, H. E. Gulley, “Women and the Lost Cause: preserving a Confederate identity in the American Deep South”, in Journal of Historical Geography, volume 19, number 2, →DOI, →ISSN, pages 125–141