devil take the hindmost

devil take the hindmost

1. An imprecation that everyone should look after their own interests, leaving those who cannot cope to whatever fate befalls them.
   • c. 1608–1610 (date written), Francis Beaumont, Iohn Fletcher, Philaster, or Love Lies a Bleeding. […], 4th edition, London: […] VV[illiam] J[ones] for Richard Hawkins, […], published 1634, →OCLC, (please specify the page):

     What if a toy take 'em i' th' heels now, and they run all away, and cry, "the devil take the hindmost?"

     at Google Books

   • 1742, James Oglethorpe, “Letter to the Honorable Trustees”, in Lucian Lamar Knight, Kenneth Coleman, Milton Ready, editors, The Colonial Records of the State of Georgia, volume 23, published 1914:

     Land Alianable which would bring in the Stock Jobbing Temper, the Devill take the Hindmost.

   • 1787, in Robert Burns, "To a Haggis" (Deil tak the hindmost)
   • 1843 April, Thomas Carlyle, “ch. VI, Two Centuries”, in Past and Present, American edition, Boston, Mass.: Charles C[offin] Little and James Brown, published 1843, →OCLC, book III (The Modern Worker):

     And [we] coldly see the all-conquering valiant Sons of Toil sit enchanted, by the million, in their Poor-Law Bastille, as if this were Nature’s Law; — mumbling to ourselves some vague janglement of Laissez-faire, Supply-and-demand, Cash-payment the one nexus of man to man: Free-trade, Competition, and Devil take the hindmost, our latest Gospel yet preached!

   • 1915, W[illiam] Somerset Maugham, “CVIII”, in Of Human Bondage, New York, N.Y.: George H[enry] Doran Company, →OCLC:

     "Oh, don't talk to me about your socialists, I've got no patience with them," she cried. "It only means that another lot of lazy loafers will make a good thing out of the working classes. My motto is, leave me alone; I don't want anyone interfering with me; I'll make the best of a bad job, and the devil take the hindmost."

   • 2010, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Love Never Dies, Song nr. 22

     "Choose your hand, try your best. He who wins, wins it all. Devil take the hindmost."

• every man for himself