A hopeless or desperate enterprise.

Roget 665: danger, peril, insecurity, jeopardy, risk, hazard, venture, precariousness, slipperiness; instability etc. 149; defenselessness etc. adj., exposure etc. (liability) 177; vulnerability; vulnerable point, heel of Achilles^†; forlorn hope etc. (hopelessness) 859.    [Dangerous course] leap in the dark etc. (rashness) 863; road to ruin, faciles descensus Averni [Lat.] [Vergil], hairbreadth escape.    cause for alarm; source of danger etc. 667.    rock ahead [Approach of danger], breakers ahead; storm brewing; clouds in the horizon, clouds gathering; warning etc. 668; alarm etc. 669.    [Sense of danger] apprehension etc. 860.    ... show more

Roget 859: hopelessness etc. adj.; despair, desperation; despondency, depression etc. (dejection) 837; pessimism, pessimist; Job's comforter; bird of bad omen, bird of ill omen.    abandonment, desolation; resignation, surrender, submission etc. 725.    hope deferred, dashed hopes; vain expectation etc. (disappointment) 509.    airy hopes etc. etc. 858; forlorn hope; gone case, dead duck, gone coon [U.S.]; goner [Slang]; bad job, bad business; enfant perdu [Fr.]; gloomy horizon, black spots in the horizon; slough of Despond, cave of Despair; immedicabile vulnus [Lat.].    ... show more