worst-case

English

Adjective

worst-case (not comparable)

1. In the least favorable of all possible circumstances.

   In a worst-case scenario, according to the ILO, 51 million jobs could be lost in 2009.

   • 2020 November 18, Paul Clifton, “We have always cleaned trains. Now, we are sanitising them”, in Rail, pages 32–33:

     In the summer, the RSSB calculated that passengers stood a 1-in-11,000 chance of catching COVID-19 on a train - a statistic it felt was actually a worst-case figure, with the risk probably even lower.

Antonyms

• best-case

Related terms

• best-case/worst-case
• best-case/worst-case analysis
• best-case/worst-case scenario
• worst-case execution time
• worst-case scenario

References

• “worst-case”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.