last roundup

English

Alternative forms

• final roundup

Etymology

An allusion to herding of cattle into a group.

Noun

last roundup (plural last roundups)

1. (chiefly US, idiomatic) A final gathering of people or items; the final event in a series of events involving a group or organization.
   • 1998 March 2, Bob Levey, “Last Week to Send Your Grocery Receipts”, in Washington Post, retrieved 1 November 2021:

     It's last roundup time, my fellow grocery patrons. On Saturday, the receipt redemption programs operated by Giant Food and Safeway ended after a 5 1/2-month run.

   • 2003 March 26, Eric Gwinn, “Television: Sun shines on cops, doctors, but has long set on cowboys”, in Chicago Tribune, retrieved 1 November 2021:

     [B]y the 1964-65 season, the number of adult westerns had dwindled to seven. That was the genre's last roundup.

   • 2011 September 29, Dan Shaughnessy, “Baseball: Red Sox make unwanted history”, in Boston Globe, retrieved 1 November 2021:

     This might have been the last roundup for Papelbon, Tim Wakefield, Jason Varitek, Big Papi, J.D. Drew, Miss Heidi, and several of the others you’ve loved all these years.

2. (chiefly US, idiomatic, euphemistic) Death.
   • 1973 December 30, Guy Flatley, “Cowboy or Cop, Wayne Never Wanes”, in New York Times, retrieved 1 November 2021:

     So Duke is 66. But don't kid yourself that he's headed for the last roundup—even though it may have looked that way a while back when he surrendered a lung to cancer.

   • 1977, Bill Reed, Dogod, Thomas Nelson (Australia) (reprinted 2015 by Reed Independent):

     [H]e swears that Jelf is going to beat him to the last roundup in the sky.

   • 2006 July 8, “Bullish on life”, in Los Angeles Times, retrieved 1 November 2021:

     [N]ot everyone who runs with the bulls is young, male, drunk and stupid. […] It also is a way for people of a certain age to do something extraordinary before their last roundup.