Legal battle delays Victoria corruption report release

What does “eleventh hour” mean in English?

When a reporter says someone acted “at the eleventh hour,” it means they did something at the very last possible moment — just before it was too late. It sounds like a time on the clock, but it is an idiom. It comes from an old story about workers who arrived at the end of the day but still got paid in full. You will hear it most in news and formal speech, not in everyday conversation.

In the clip, the reporter says a mystery party “launched eleventh hour legal action” to stop the release of Victoria’s IBAC corruption report. The legal move came right before the findings went public — that is why the reporter chose this phrase. You will hear “eleventh hour” a lot in news. For example: “The two sides reached an eleventh-hour deal to stop the strike.” Or: “Rescuers made an eleventh-hour attempt to reach the trapped miners.” Notice the hyphen when the phrase comes before a noun (“an eleventh-hour deal”), but no hyphen after a verb (“it came at the eleventh hour”). In casual speech, people usually say “at the last minute” instead. “Eleventh hour” sounds more dramatic and fits news or formal writing best.