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

  • fat chance we have of winning now,” Dan said as the final event of the meet was called.

  • You had a fat chance of talking the old Major out of anything!

    Fore! | Charles Emmett Van Loan
  • And 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.