Word.ws English Dictionary

like one's life depended on it

like one's life depended on it prepositional phrase: desperately.

Prepositional phrase

  1. (idiomatic, simile) Desperately.
    • With Carlos Tevez chasing down every lost cause like his life depended on it, City always had an out ball but Arsenal had such a monopoly on possession that they barely had to give thought even to the Argentine.2011 January 5, Jonathan Stevenson, “Arsenal 0 - 0 Man City”, in BBC

Questions about like one's life depended on it

What does like one's life depended on it mean?
Like one's life depended on it means desperately.
What part of speech is like one's life depended on it?
Like one's life depended on it is a prepositional phrase.

Words near like one's life depended on it in the dictionary

  1. like one means it
  2. like one needs a hole in the head
  3. like one o'clock
  4. like one o'clock half struck
  5. like one owns the place
  6. like one's life depended on it
  7. like painting the Forth Bridge
  8. like peas and carrots
  9. like peas in a pod
  10. like pigs in clover
  11. like rats from a sinking ship

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: like one's life depended on it (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-like one's life depended on it.ogg.

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