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the devil take the hindmost

the devil take the hindmost is the alternative form of devil take the hindmost.

Meaning of devil take the hindmost

Phrase

the devil take the hindmost

  1. An imprecation that everyone should look after their own interests, leaving those who cannot cope to whatever fate befalls them.
    • What if a toy take um ith heeles now, and they runn all away, and cry the Divell take the hindmoſt.c. 1608–1610 (date written), Francis Beaumont, Iohn Fletcher, Philaster, or Love Lies a Bleeding. […], 4th edition, London: […] VV[illiam] J[ones] for Richard Hawkins, […], published 1634, →OCLC, Act...

Phrase capitalized: the Devil take the hindmost

the Devil take the hindmost

  1. (alternative) Alternative form of devil take the hindmost.
    • Completely unknown territory lay outside; puzzling, impossible networks of Underground trains and moving staircases; buses that jerked to a stop and barely gave you time to get on before speeding away. No time to ask questions; no time to ask for answers to be repeated; it was all quick and go and...1973, James Broom Lynne, “Monday, 13th December, 08.20 hrs.”, in Collision!, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Company, Inc., →ISBN, pages 62–63
    • “We’ll trot to the gate, side by side, and then we’ll race straight down the road, and the Devil take the hindmost,” shouted the Grand Vizier as fiercely as he could to his laughing partner.1976, Jackson Reed [pseudonym; George Jackson Eder], chapter 14, in The Raptures of Love, New York, N.Y.: Pyramid Publications, →ISBN, page 204

Questions about the devil take the hindmost

What is the devil take the hindmost the alternative form of?
The devil take the hindmost is the alternative form of devil take the hindmost.
What part of speech is the devil take the hindmost?
The devil take the hindmost is a phrase.

Words near the devil take the hindmost in the dictionary

  1. the devil is a liar
  2. the devil is in the detail
  3. the devil is in the details
  4. the devil looks after his own
  5. the devil makes work for idle hands
  6. the devil take the hindmost
  7. the devil takes care of his own
  8. the devil that you know is better than the devil that you don't know
  9. the devil to pay and no pitch hot or ready
  10. the devil we know is better than the devil we don't
  11. the devil we know is better than the devil we don't know

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: the devil take the hindmost (page history and authors); the Devil take the hindmost (page history and authors); devil take the hindmost (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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