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beyond recall

beyond recall idiom

Irreversible, irretrievable, as in We can't repair this screen—it's beyond recall, or It's too late to cancel our plans—they're beyond recall. This idiom employs recall in the sense of revoking or annulling something. [Mid-1600s]

The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer. Copyright © 2003, 1997 by The Christine Ammer 1992 Trust. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.