white hope

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white hope

1. Someone who is expected to achieve great success, as for an organization.

2. A white prizefighter believed by fans to have a chance of defeating a black champion.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

white hope

informal a person who is expected to bring honour or glory to his group, team, etc

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

white′ hope′

1. a person who is expected to accomplish much in a given field.

2. a white boxer at one time thought to have a good chance of winning a title held by a black.

[1905–10]

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Noun

white hope - someone (or something) expected to achieve great success in a given field; "this company is the great white hope of the nuclear industry's waste management policy"

great white hope

hope - someone (or something) on which expectations are centered; "he was their best hope for a victory"

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References in periodicals archive ?

The hulking, 6ft 6ins fighter - known for his devastating left hook - was saddled with the tag of "great white hope" and hated it.

It's another knockout at Premier

I fear this great white hope will turn out to be a white elephant for the North East, sucking even more infrastructure investment out of the English regions.

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Most famously, his story was fictionalized for the play "The Great White Hope," starring James Earl Jones, which won the Pulitzer Prize for drama and the Tony Award for best play in 1969.

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A tiny sliver of white hope in what has otherwise been a tunnel of despair for experimentation - no one knows how it' ll play out.

Take a chance for little Charlie

concerns me, Data, is that, from being seen as the great white hope of the industry, your latest incarnations are turning out to be pretty nasty pieces of work.

Dear Data, we need to rethink how we can work together

The former Wigan Warrior becomes the latest great white hope to make the crosscode transition, and doubtless hopes to emulate the success of another former Wigan and Sale star Jason Robinson, rather than the likes of Henry Paul and Sam Burgess.

Guy takes the helm for Wasps; Fringe men get their chance to stake claim

Synopsis: A collaboratively written history by Barry Guise and Pam Brook, "The Midland Hotel: Morecambes White Hope" is the detailed story of a hotel from its inception and 1930s prime, through its role as a hospital in World War II, to its sale into private ownership, and its fluctuating fortunes that reached rock-bottom in 2002.

The Midland Hotel: Morecambes White Hope

Now there's Harry Kane, Dele Alli and Jamie Vardy - and far from seeing that as a threat Wayne should, for once, enjoy not being England's sole great white hope.

Roo's in.. come Wayne or shine

The plays under discussion range from the canonical (Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun and Amiri Baraka's Dutchman) to celebrated, yet understudied works (Alice Childress's Wine in the Wilderness, Howard Sackler's The Great White Hope, and Charles Gordone's No Place to Be Somebody).

Davis, Carol Bunch. Prefiguring Postblackness: Cultural Memory, Drama and the African American Freedom Struggle of the 1960s

But with the demise of The Savage Eye, we've only got one great white hope for satire at the minute.

LAST Monday night the world [...]; ON THE BOX

TI West was once horror's great white hope following the excellent shock-satire The Cottage and slasher homage The House of the Devil.