Word.ws English Dictionary

hoping against hope

hoping against hope is the present participle and gerund of hope against hope.

Meaning of hope against hope

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)

  1. (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

Questions about hoping against hope

What is hoping against hope the present participle and gerund of?
Hoping against hope is the present participle and gerund of hope against hope.

Words near hoping against hope in the dictionary

  1. hopia
  2. hopias
  3. hopin'
  4. Hopiness
  5. hoping
  6. hoping against hope
  7. hopingly
  8. hopings
  9. Hopis
  10. hopium
  11. Hopkin

Source and license

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