twelfth man
Britishnoun
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a reserve player in a cricket team
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anything that is regarded as a contributory factor to the success of a football team, esp a large and vocal home support
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.
"Mistress Delia," I said hurriedly, "the twelfth man has enter'd the house, and unless we consider our plans at once, all's up with us."
From The Splendid Spur by Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
There they reached a verdict so quickly that, as the saying is, the foreman was coming back into the court-room before the twelfth man was out of it.
From In a Little Town by Rupert Hughes
"That's only your politeness," he went on; "in a week you will be talking about me as 'that man Ward who says he was twelfth man at Wellingham.'"
From Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate by Charles Turley
I was twelfth man to the XI., though you needn't believe it if you don't want to.
From Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate by Charles Turley
He goes at it on the principle of the twelfth man, who holds out against the eleven other jurors, and finally brings them around to his way of thinking.
From Second Book of Tales by Eugene Field
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.
