Word.ws English Dictionary

left someone in the lurch

left someone in the lurch is the simple past and past participle of leave someone in the lurch.

Meaning of leave someone in the lurch

Verb

leave someone in the lurch (third-person singular simple present leaves someone in the lurch, present participle leaving someone in the lurch, simple past and past participle left someone in the lurch)

  1. (idiomatic) To abandon somebody; especially, to abandon somebody and leave them in a difficult situation.
    • He left me in the lurch and I had to finish the whole project by myself.

Questions about left someone in the lurch

What is left someone in the lurch the simple past and past participle of?
Left someone in the lurch is the simple past and past participle of leave someone in the lurch.

Words near left someone in the lurch in the dictionary

  1. left someone cold
  2. left someone hanging
  3. left someone high and dry
  4. left someone holding the baby
  5. left someone in the dust
  6. left someone in the lurch
  7. left someone no choice
  8. left someone on read
  9. left someone on seen
  10. left someone out in the cold
  11. left someone to their fate

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: left someone in the lurch (page history and authors); leave someone in the lurch (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: “left someone in the lurch.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/left_someone_in_the_lurch. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.