fat chance
Very little or no possibility, as in A fact chance he has of coming in first, or You think they'll get married? Fat chance! A related expression is a fat lot, meaning “very little or none at all,” as in A fat lot of good it will do her. The first of these slangy sarcastic usages dates from the early 1900s, the second from the 1890s.
Words Nearby fat chance
The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
How to use fat chance in a sentence
Brooks: Here comes Peter, folks, the well-known director of Busting and fat chance, hopping down the bunny trail.
Mel Brooks Is Always Funny and Often Wise in This 1975 Playboy Interview | Alex Belth | February 16, 2014 | THE DAILY BEASTfat chance that would get through this, or perhaps any, Congress.
Democrats Need to Stop Attacking Obama’s Budget and Wake Up to Reality | Robert Shrum | April 14, 2013 | THE DAILY BEASTTo his subjects like Lauder, who joked that he hoped “he manipulates the lines out of my face,” Samaras responds “fat chance.”
Why does a fat chance and a slim chance mean the same thing?
Just my luck to miss a nice fat chance like that—the beggar was never caught, he seemed to vanish into thin air.
Into the Jaws of Death | Jack O'Brien
“fat chance we have of winning now,” Dan said as the final event of the meet was called.
Dan Carter and the River Camp | Mildred A. WirtYou had a fat chance of talking the old Major out of anything!
Fore! | Charles Emmett Van LoanAnd he doesn't tell me anything except that we stand a fat chance of losing everything.
Big Timber | Bertrand W. Sinclair“fat chance of digging up a live Indian in Webster City,” he scoffed.
Dan Carter and the Great Carved Face | Mildred A. Wirt
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