WordNet
n. a state of extreme distress [syn: dire straits]
Usage examples of "desperate straits".
I am, I know, either being deceived, like a baby, by my own fears, or else I am in desperate straits, and if the latter be so, I need, and shall need, all my brains to get through.
It was a measure of our desperate straits, that he would attempt such a thing.
If I wanted the Archon to consider my request a valid one, I had best appear in truth a D'Angeline noblewoman, and not a ragtag refugee in desperate straits.
The Yama-Shita must be in desperate straits if they hoped anyone would believe such a tissue of lies!
I had too much to think about: like how it had been primarily my fault, through mistake, miscalculation, or sheer pig-headedness, that the _Dolphin_ and her crew had been brought to such desperate straits.
Two centuries of traveling beside someone, of fighting beside someone, often in desperate straits, tends to make such facts diminish.
At that time, RothwellGornt was also in desperate straits because of their huge losses at Shanghai the previous year thanks to the conquest by Mao.