Learn English – What does “left for dead” mean

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I'm not a native speaker. Also, I play video games. 😛 When the video game Left 4 Dead came out I thought the phrase was just a cool but largely meaningless title that hinted at the game being about zombies.

I, since then, found out it was a real phrase, but I'm still unsure as to what it really means. For example, the phrase "They were left for dead", does it mean something like this…

  • "They were left to die [because there was no hope for them]", or maybe…
  • "It was assumed they were dead by then." (ie. highly unlikely that they were still alive), or…
  • "They were left there on purpose so they would die."

Also, another form of the phrase is "let die", which I first heard in Green Day's song "21 Guns":

When it's time to live and let die,
And you can't get another try,
Something inside this heart has died,
You're in ruins.

Here it sounds more like it has a similar meaning to "give up [on life?]".

Could someone explain this phrase and its various forms to me?

Best Answer

To understand what this simple phrase means first think of the literal meaning, that the person was abandoned because it was assumed that they were already dead, mortally wounded or that it was inevitable that they die.

But there is more to the phrase than that. In common usage, this phrase is often part of a narrative where a person was expected to die, yet against the odds they survived. Some examples from COCA:

Left for dead by a busy road, Susan managed to get a ride to a police station where she insisted she be brought to the Nairobi Women's Hospital.

Pueschel, just 11-years-old, was beaten, stabbed and left for dead, but he lived to testify against Reginald and Gerry Mahaffe.

... a young man in Los Angeles was robbed, shot, left for dead, but he lived because a bullet was stopped by a radio in his pocket.

The common theme in these stories is an act of cruelty towards an innocent person who survives either by a stroke of luck or a miracle. A proper reading of the title Left for Dead should include cruelty, abandonment but also a sense of hope.