not long for this world

alternative not long for the world

1. idiomaticnot comparableUnlikely to endure for much more time.

   Though Aunt Maud had always maintained she was not long for this world, she outlived all her generation.

   2006, Richard Peck, The Teacher's Funeral: A Comedy in Three Parts, page 188

   4 more examples

   Townsend went there with us, but found himself so unwell that he went home very early. His cough has return'd, with several disagreeable symptoms. I fear exceedingly that he is not long for this world.

   1787, John Quincy Adams, Charles Francis Adams, editor, Life in a New England Town, 1787, 1788: Diary of John Quincy Adams (1903), page 109

   He thinks that said soul will have to be resuscitated from its asphyxia; that if it prove irresuscitable, the man is not long for this world.

   1843 April, Thomas Carlyle, “ch. 6, Hero-Worship”, in Past and Present, American edition, Boston, Mass.: Charles C[offin] Little and James Brown, published 1843, →OCLC, book I (Proem)

   But I've had a warning, and I'm not long for this world." "Not long for this world? Oh, nonsense, Plunkett. You mustn't talk like that. A touch of indigestion, that's what you've got, I expect.

   1928, Dorothy L. Sayers, “The Undignified Melodrama of the Bone of Contention”, in Dorothy L. Sayers: the complete stories, published 2002, page 92

   With Gambier Bay and Hoel sinking and Roberts not much longer for this world, the Johnston is now set upon by four cruisers and a number of destroyers. The ship's crew patch holes as fast as they can, but the ship is literally gradually being taken apart by repeated salvos. The fact that this particular set of Japanese ships is STILL using armor-piercing instead of high explosive is the only saving grace.

   2019 February 27, Drachinifel, 31:46 from the start, in The Battle of Samar - Odds? What are those?, archived from the original on 03 Nov 2022