Word.ws English Dictionary

die in the last ditch

die in the last ditch verb: to fight till death; to die rather than surrender.

Verb

die in the last ditch (third-person singular simple present dies in the last ditch, present participle dying in the last ditch, simple past and past participle died in the last ditch)

  1. To fight till death; to die rather than surrender.

Forms of die in the last ditch

third-person singular presentdies in the last ditch
present participledying in the last ditch
past participledied in the last ditch
pastdied in the last ditch

Origin of die in the last ditch

Popularized from an 1847 translation by Agnes Strickland of a quote attributed to William of Orange during the French invasion of 1672 on his being advised to surrender Holland to Louis XIV: "No, I mean to die in the last ditch."

Questions about die in the last ditch

What does die in the last ditch mean?
Die in the last ditch means to fight till death; to die rather than surrender.
What part of speech is die in the last ditch?
Die in the last ditch is a verb.
What is the past tense of die in the last ditch?
The past tense of die in the last ditch is died in the last ditch.

Words near die in the last ditch in the dictionary

  1. die in a fire
  2. die in harness
  3. die in one's shoes
  4. die in the arse
  5. die in the ass
  6. die in the last ditch
  7. die just how one lived
  8. die just like one lived
  9. die just the way one lived
  10. die laughing
  11. die liao

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: die in the last ditch (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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