last stand
/lɑːst stænd/
last stand noun: a military encounter, especially against (often greatly) superior odds, generally as a last resort, whether to save another army or city, or as a last act of defiance, and often resulting in the total annihilation of the weaker force.
Noun
last stand (plural last stands)
- A military encounter, especially against (often greatly) superior odds, generally as a last resort, whether to save another army or city, or as a last act of defiance, and often resulting in the total annihilation of the weaker force.
- to make one's last stand
- After a forty-five-minute struggle against vastly-unequal odds, aboard the Johnston, the order is given to abandon ship. The ship goes down twenty-five minutes later, at ten minutes past ten, taking one hundred and eighty-six of her crew, including the gallant Captain Evans, with her. He will...2019 February 27, Drachinifel, 34:35 from the start, in The Battle of Samar - Odds? What are those?, archived from the original on 03 Nov 2022
Forms of last stand
| plural | last stands |
|---|---|
| alternative form | final stand |
Questions about last stand
- What does last stand mean?
- Last stand means a military encounter, especially against (often greatly) superior odds, generally as a last resort, whether to save another army or city, or as a last act of defiance, and often resulting in the total annihilation of the weaker force.
- What part of speech is last stand?
- Last stand is a noun.
- How do you pronounce last stand?
- Last stand is pronounced /lɑːst stænd/.
- What is the plural of last stand?
- The plural of last stand is last stands.
Words near last stand in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: last stand (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: “last stand.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/last_stand. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.