leave in the lurch

Idioms  

1. Abandon or desert someone in difficult straits. For example, Jane was angry enough to quit without giving notice, leaving her boss in the lurch. This expression alludes to a 16th-century French dice game, lourche, where to incur a lurch meant to be far behind the other players. It later was used in cribbage and other games, as well as being used in its present figurative sense by about 1600.

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Example Sentences

“The majority’s rule will leave in the lurch the many states, private parties and legal researchers who relied on the previously bright-line rule” between statutes and annotations, he wrote.

From New York Times • Apr. 27, 2020

It’s not just prisoners whom private prison contractors leave in the lurch, though.

From The Guardian • Jan. 21, 2016

Peel not there, having hopped off to Staffordshire, to the great disgust of his party, whom he never scruples to leave in the lurch.

From The Greville Memoirs A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II by Reeve, Henry

She hoped to find a yet better site, and, by undertaking at once both purchase of land and construction of the building, with a liberal endowment added, to leave in the lurch all philanthropic rivals.

From Our Friend the Charlatan by Gissing, George

Poor Miss Planta, meanwhile, I was forced to leave in the lurch; for I could not propose the bed-room passage to my present company, and she was undressed and unpacking.

From The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay — Volume 2 by Burney, Fanny