Word.ws English Dictionary

Buckley's chance

Buckley's chance noun: a very small chance; no chance at all.

Noun

Buckley's chance (uncountable)

  1. (Australia, idiomatic, informal) A very small chance; no chance at all.
    • "So he has a chance," said Connie. "Buckley's chance, the way his luck is. Fell out with his girl he did, and lost his job, and now 'e's goin' to lose 'is life. The unluckiest man that ever lived."1936, Andrew Barton ("Banjo") Paterson, The Shearer′s Colt

Synonyms of Buckley's chance

Origin of Buckley's chance

Uncertain. Candidates are: * A reference to William Buckley (1780–1856), a convict who escaped in Victoria in 1803 and lived with an Australian Aboriginal tribe for 30 years (non-Aboriginal people in the bush were considered to have "no chance" of survival). This is the most popular candidate, but earliest known usages date from the 1890s, some 30 years after his death. Nonetheless, this was soon after Buckley's story was publicised in 1889 by E. W. Cole in his book Savage Life in Australia: The Story of William Buckley the Runaway Convict who Lived Thirty-two Years Among the Blacks of Australia, so this etymology remains plausible. * From Buckley's and none, presuming that expression derives from a Melbourne department store, Buckley & Nunn. * A reference to Mr Buckley of the Bombala region of southern New South Wales, who sued the government over title to land, the action seeming to have little prospect of success. * Again a reference to Mars Buckley, not in connection with Crumpton Nunn (as above, re Buckley's and none), but rather in relation to an 1893 run on banks, when Buckley ensured that the Bank of Australasia would have no chance of using his money to pay other...

Questions about Buckley's chance

What does Buckley's chance mean?
Buckley's chance means a very small chance; no chance at all.
What part of speech is Buckley's chance?
Buckley's chance is a noun.

Words near Buckley's chance in the dictionary

  1. Buckley syndrome
  2. Buckley Wells
  3. Buckley's
  4. Buckley's and none
  5. Buckley's and Nunn
  6. Buckley's chance
  7. Buckley's hope
  8. Buckley's rule
  9. Buckleyan
  10. Buckleyesque
  11. Buckleys

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Buckley's chance (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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