last full measure

English

Noun

last full measure (plural last full measures)

  1. (idiomatic) A person's life, when lost through death in service to a nation or cause, particularly as a member of a military force in war or a semi-militarized organization such as a police force or civil defense corps, e.g. fire departments. May also be applied to some dangerous government and civil occupations such as espionage.
    Synonyms: ultimate sacrifice, supreme sacrifice
    Near-synonym: martyrdom
    Today we mourn these heroes who gave the last full measure in support of freedom.
    • 1863 November 19, Abraham Lincoln, Dedicatory Remarks (Gettysburg Address)‎[1], near Soldiers' National Cemetery, →LCCN, Bliss copy, pages 2-3:
      It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Usage notes

  • Not normally applied to death in service to a nation or cause outside of a military or semi-military context; for example the deaths by starvation of scientists defending the Pavlovsk Experimental Station gene bank in Leningrad during World War II, refusing to consume irreplaceable scientific samples even to save themselves, are not usually characterized this way, despite those deaths being regarded sentimentally and as noble acts.

See also

Further reading

This article is issued from Wiktionary. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.