Word.ws English Dictionary

on a wing and a prayer

on a wing and a prayer prepositional phrase: with the hope of averting disaster despite a desperate situation teetering on failure.

Prepositional phrase

  1. With the hope of averting disaster despite a desperate situation teetering on failure.
    • After seeing half the senior staff walk out, the school opened the new year on a wing and a prayer.
    Synonyms:
    on a whim and a prayer

Synonyms of on a wing and a prayer

  • on a whim and a prayer

Origin of on a wing and a prayer

Describes a damaged warplane barely able to return to base, possibly originating in the film Flying Tigers (1942) in which the dialog refers to a flight as “coming in on one wing and a prayer”, made popular by the World War II song “Comin’ in on a Wing and a Prayer” with lyrics by Harold Adamson.

Questions about on a wing and a prayer

What does on a wing and a prayer mean?
On a wing and a prayer means with the hope of averting disaster despite a desperate situation teetering on failure.
What part of speech is on a wing and a prayer?
On a wing and a prayer is a prepositional phrase.

Words near on a wing and a prayer in the dictionary

  1. on a sudden
  2. on a tear
  3. on a tight leash
  4. on a time
  5. on a whim
  6. on a wing and a prayer
  7. on a wonder
  8. on about
  9. on accident
  10. on account
  11. on account of

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: on a wing and a prayer (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: “on a wing and a prayer.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/on_a_wing_and_a_prayer. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.