Eleventh hour

At the eleventh hour has come to mean the last possible moment and in this sense it effectively means the same thing as the last minute. The eleventh hour refers to the last hour of the Roman working day, which began at 0600 (sunrise) and ended at 1800. Thus, the literal eleventh hour would be 1700. The origin of the expression is from the Bible Matthew 20:1 to 16, which features the parable of the vineyard workers. Most of the workers started work at 0600 at the agreed daily rate of one penny. Other workers were hired at the third, sixth and ninth hour i.e. at 0900, 1200 and 1500 respectively. Finally, the vineyard owner hired some more labourers at the eleventh hour and then paid all the workers exactly the same daily rate, which caused some dissension. The vineyard owner insisted that he did no wrong by paying everyone equal wages, the point of the parable being, “the last shall be first and the first last”.