Meaning & use
11th hour
Last updated
Meaning
phraseidiomfigurative
The latest possible time before a deadline, decision, or disaster, when action happens only just in time.
Grammar: Usually appears as at the 11th hour; before nouns it is commonly written 11th-hour with a hyphen.
Patterns
- at the 11th hour
- an 11th-hour deal
- an 11th-hour rescue
At the 11th hour, the city council approved the shelter funding.
They signed an 11th-hour agreement minutes before midnight.
Her 11th-hour phone call solved the scheduling crisis.
Common combinations
- at the 11th hour
- The deadline was met at the 11th hour.
- an 11th-hour decision
- The manager made an 11th-hour decision to postpone the launch.
- 11th-hour negotiations
- 11th-hour negotiations prevented the strike.
Synonyms and how they differ
- last minute
- Last minute is very close, but 11th hour often stresses urgent action just before a formal deadline.
- zero hour
- Zero hour can mean the planned start time, not necessarily the final chance to prevent failure.
Opposites
Word family
- eleventh-hour adjective
- Hyphenated attributive form used before a noun, as in an eleventh-hour deal.
Commonly confused: 11th hour or last minute?
11th hour vs last minute
Both mean very late; last minute is more casual, while 11th hour often sounds dramatic or journalistic.
Practice
Choose the natural sentence.
Choose one answer.
The fixed idiom is at the 11th hour. By the 11th hour can mean before that moment, so it does not express the idiomatic last-minute sense here.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “11th hour”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.