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.
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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