devil take the hindmost
devil take the hindmost phrase: an imprecation that everyone should look after their own interests, leaving those who cannot cope to whatever fate befalls them.
Phrase (1)
- An imprecation that everyone should look after their own interests, leaving those who cannot cope to whatever fate befalls them.
- What if a toy take um ith heeles now, and they runn all away, and cry the Divell take the hindmoſt.c. 1608–1610 (date written), Francis Beaumont, Iohn Fletcher, Philaster, or Love Lies a Bleeding. […], 4th edition, London: […] VV[illiam] J[ones] for Richard Hawkins, […], published 1634, →OCLC, Act...
- Land Alianable which would bring in the Stock Jobbing Temper, the Devill take the Hindmost.1742, James Oglethorpe, “Letter to the Honorable Trustees”, in Lucian Lamar Knight, Kenneth Coleman, Milton Ready, editors, The Colonial Records of the State of Georgia, volume 23, published 1914
Phrase (2) capitalized: Devil take the hindmost
- Alternative letter-case form of devil take the hindmost.
- And [we] coldly see the all-conquering valiant Sons of Toil sit enchanted, by the million, in their Poor-Law Bastille, as if this were Nature’s Law;—mumbling to ourselves some vague janglement of Laissez-faire, Supply-and-demand, Cash-payment the one nexus of man to man: Free-trade, Competition...1843 April, Thomas Carlyle, “Two Centuries”, in Past and Present, American edition, Boston, Mass.: Charles C[offin] Little and James Brown, published 1843, →OCLC, book III (The Modern Worker), page...
- Kells gave her a tender look. She was so reckless, so gallant, his fiery lady. She took every fence at a gallop, she flung her heart over, Devil take the hindmost.1986 September, Valerie Sherwood [pseudonym; Jeanne Hines], chapter 5, in Nightsong, New York, N.Y.: Pocket Books, →ISBN, page 91
Forms of devil take the hindmost
| alternative form | Devil take the hindmost |
|---|---|
| alternative form | the Devil take the hindmost |
| alternative form | the devil take the hindmost |
Questions about devil take the hindmost
- What does devil take the hindmost mean?
- Devil take the hindmost means an imprecation that everyone should look after their own interests, leaving those who cannot cope to whatever fate befalls them.
- What part of speech is devil take the hindmost?
- Devil take the hindmost is a phrase.
Words near devil take the hindmost in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: devil take the hindmost (page history and authors); Devil take the hindmost (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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Cite this entry: “devil take the hindmost.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/devil_take_the_hindmost. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.