Hail Mary
Americannoun
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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.
noun
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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
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slang American football a very long high pass into the end zone, made in the final seconds of a half or of a game
Etymology
Origin of Hail Mary
1300–50; Middle English, translation of Medieval Latin Ave Maria
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
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
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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.