For Books and fine Pictures are the Forlorn-hope, as it were, of the Catholick Cloyſters and Convents; and as there are few of the Monks that underſtand either, upon any great Emergency they ſooner chuſe to convert theſe Moveables into Money, than to melt down their ſuperfluous Hoards of Plate; Treaſures which are oftentimes by far the leſs valuable.

Our Trenches were immediately open'd towards the Dauphin Baſtion, againſt which were planted many Cannon, in order to make a Breach; my ſelf as Probationer being twice put upon the forlorn Hope to facilitate that difficult Piece of Service.

[Benedict] Arnold, therefore, as usual with him, led the forlorn hope, marching about one hundred yards before the main body.

Lieutenant Templeton of the 76th offered to lead the forlorn hope. … So steep, however, was the ascent, and so continuous and well directed the fire upon it by the enemy from the bastion nearest to it, that but few men succeeded in reaching the summit. The first of these was young Templeton, the leader of the forlorn hope, but he was at once shot dead.

After exploding a mine, a forlorn hope of fifty English troops rushed out from one of the tunnels and made good their footing upon the ramparts.

There will be would-be saviours of a disintegrating society who will refuse to despair of the Present and will lead forlorn hopes in an endeavour to turn the tide and to convert the rout into a fresh advance, without being willing to 'retreat according to plan' for the sake of even temporarily breaking off contact with an enemy who has at any rate momentarily gained the upper hand.

A detachment of 400 Continental soldiers waited anxiously outside Yorktown on the dark and bone-chilling evening of October 14, 1781. Pangs of uncertainty spread through the ranks, for these men were the advance party, the "forlorn hope," on the attack of the British fortifications at Yorktown.

[T]o make this realme a praye to al venturers, al ſpoylers, all ſnaphanſes, all forlornehopes, all cormerauntes, all reuenours of the worlde, that wyll inuade this realme, is to ſaye, thou poſſeſſyoner of any landes of this realme, of what degree ſo euer thou be, fro the higheſt to the loweſt, ſhalte be ſlayne and deſtroyed, and thy landes taken frome the by thoſe that wyl haue al for them ſelfes.

These cases form the forlorn hope in surgery; all saved are snatched from nearly certain death. [From the Medico-Chirurgical Transactions.]

Astrological medicine for the sick, indeed, was often the forlorn hope of the art, and the wise man expected it to function primarily as a system of preventative and explanatory physic.

[H]e was not so much stalking us as clinging importunately, frantically, a mortal cripple, to us, as his only distant forlorn hope of help, and by his very silence sending out an imploring Mayday stating that he could neither answer nor surface, was marooned in the deep.

Finally, on June 7, after steaming about in the vicinity of Cuba with some forlorn hope of gaining entry to a U.S. port, the ship began a return voyage.

Forlorn hope

Meaning

Noun

Rhymes