hope against hope

hope against hope verb: to continue to hope, even when what is hoped for seems unlikely or impossible.

Verb

hope against hope (third-person singular simple present hopes against hope, present participle hoping against hope, simple past and past participle hoped against hope)

(idiomatic) To continue to hope, even when what is hoped for seems unlikely or impossible.
- Would he be in time to rescue? He hoped against hope. At least he could be revenged, and in his wrath it seemed to him that he was equal to the task of wiping out the entire population of that terrible city.1913, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Return of Tarzan, New York: Ballantine Books, published 1963, page 206

لالے پڑنا

third-person singular present	hopes against hope
present participle	hoping against hope
past participle	hoped against hope
past	hoped against hope

Likely a paraphrase of the first few words of Romans 4:18.

What does hope against hope mean?: Hope against hope means to continue to hope, even when what is hoped for seems unlikely or impossible.
What is hope against hope in Urdu?: Hope against hope in Urdu is لالے پڑنا. See Hope against hope meaning in Urdu.
What part of speech is hope against hope?: Hope against hope is a verb.
What is the past tense of hope against hope?: The past tense of hope against hope is hoped against hope.

Adapted from Wiktionary: hope against hope (page history and authors); hope against hope (Urdu Wiktionary) (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.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-hope against hope.ogg.

Cite this entry: “hope against hope.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/hope_against_hope. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.