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for the life of one
Idioms and Phrases
Although trying hard, as in I can't for the life of me remember his name . This expression is always used hyperbolically, that is, one's life is not at all endangered. [Late 1700s]Example Sentences
The Portland Press Herald reports some marijuana industry members were concerned that would mean hundreds of tags would be required for the life of one plant, which can be processed into many products.
In the end, Bin Salman could pay more dearly for the life of one critical journalist than for all of Saudi Arabia’s other destructive actions.
“I think one war enough for the life of one man,” Jefferson wrote a friend in 1808, “and you and I have gone through one which at least may lesson our impatience to embark in another.”
And there came over him that sensation we all know so well—the same feeling that one has when one can't for the life of one think of the required word; every other word comes up; associations with the right word come up; occasions when one has used the word come up; one wanders round and round the immediate vicinity of the word wanted, but the actual word itself will not appear, though you may break your head to get at it!
For the life of one slain may not be recovered by the slaying of the murderer.
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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
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