Hail Mary

American  

[heyl mer-ee, mair-ee] / ˈheɪl ˈmɛr i, ˈmɛər i /

noun

1. Ave Maria.

2. Also called Hail Mary pass,.  Also called Hail Mary play.  a long forward pass in football, especially as a last-ditch attempt at the end of a game, where completion is considered unlikely.

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Hail Mary British  

noun

1. Also called: Ave Maria.  RC Church a prayer to the Virgin Mary, based on the salutations of the angel Gabriel (Luke 1:28) and Elizabeth (Luke 1:42) to her

2. slang American football a very long high pass into the end zone, made in the final seconds of a half or of a game

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Etymology

Origin of Hail Mary

1300–50; Middle English, translation of Medieval Latin Ave Maria

Example Sentences

Space adventure flick "Project Hail Mary" topped the North American box office for a second straight week with $54.5 million in ticket sales, industry estimates showed Sunday.

From Barron's • Mar. 29, 2026

The findings, published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, echo the kind of mission imagined in the Hollywood film Project Hail Mary.

From Science Daily • Mar. 25, 2026

Project Hail Mary ranks as the third-bigest non-sequel and non-franchise film to open above $50m overseas since the Covid pandemic, along with Oppenheimer and F1: The Movie.

From BBC • Mar. 23, 2026

Guest: Frankie de la Cretaz, writer at the intersection of sports, gender, culture, and queerness, author of Hail Mary: the Rise and Fall of the National Women’s Football League and Out of Your League newsletter.

From Slate • Feb. 26, 2026

When we finished saying Hail Mary about three hundred times, we said our personal prayers silently, which was kept to a minimum, since our knees would be killing us by then.

From "The Secret Life of Bees" by Sue Monk Kidd