catch at straws

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.

But the frail death-agony effort to catch at straws of memory, straws of life from the past, brought on too great a nausea.

From England, My England by Lawrence, D. H. (David Herbert)

What could possess me to make such a request of such a man I cannot tell; but drowning men catch at straws: they had driven me desperate between them; I hardly knew what I said. 

From The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Brontë, Anne

Drowning men catch at straws, and the spectacled visage of the auctioneer, as he clings wildly to his rostrum, is a perfect study of terrified imbecility.

From English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. by Everitt, Graham

Yet some old and tried soldiers laughed and said, "Drowning men catch at straws; and this good fellow thinks to talk himself out of gaol."

From The Adventurous Simplicissimus being the description of the Life of a Strange vagabond named Melchior Sternfels von Fuchshaim by Grimmelshausen, Hans Jacob Christoph von

Dying men catch at straws, and, to appeal to this passage is as if one were catching at a straw.

From The Doctrines of Predestination, Reprobation, and Election by Wallace, Robert