To fight with a rope round one’s neck. To fight with a certainty of being hanged unless you conquer.
“You must send in a large force; … for, as he fights with a rope round his neck, he will struggle to the last.”—Kingston: The Three Admirals, viii.
To give one rope enough. To permit a person to continue in wrong-doing, till he reaps the consequences.
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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.
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