hightail

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hightail it

To depart very quickly. The phrase refers to the way some animals raise their tails when fleeing. We hightailed it out of the party when we heard police sirens approaching. I hightailed it to the store for cleaning supplies when I heard that my mother-in-law was coming to town.

See also: hightail

hightail it out of (somewhere)

To depart at once and with haste. A reference to the way some animals raise their tails when fleeing. We hightailed it out of the party when we heard police sirens approaching. We won't have much time to get to the airport, so once you're finished work, you just hightail it out of there, OK?

hightail it out of (somewhere)

Rur. to run or ride a horse away from somewhere fast; to leave in a hurry. (Typically heard in western movies.) Here comes the sheriff. We'd better hightail it out of here. Look at that guy go. He really hightailed it out of town.

hightail it

Go as fast as possible, especially in leaving; rush off. For example, With the police now searching for them, they hightailed it out of town, or When Jane remembered it was his birthday, she hightailed it to the bakery for a cake. This expression alludes to the raised tail of a rabbit or other animal that is fleeing. [Colloquial; late 1800s]

See also: hightail

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.

ˈhightail it

(informal, especially American English) leave somewhere very quickly: As soon as the bell went for the end of lessons, Jack ran out of the school gates and hightailed it for home.

This is a comparison with the way some animals raise their tails when they are running away.

See also: hightail

Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary © Farlex 2017

hightail it

To hurry or flee.

See also: hightail

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

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References in periodicals archive ?

The purchase allows Hightail to strengthen its leadership in offering the most secure product experience to customers, as well as to meet the growing demand for content control and security, the buyer said.

Hightail unveils Adept Cloud buy

By breaking his maiden tag at the ninth attempt, Hightail entered the Breeders' Cup record books, firstly by having emerged victorious in the smallest field to contest a Breeders' Cup race and secondly by making Lukas the oldest trainer ever to win at the meeting.

Calidoscopio hits heights as European bid bites dirt

This leads Julia to steal bingo money from her boss and hightail it to George Bush Intercontinental Airport, where the electronic departure signs psychically lead her to Manhattan in search of her mysterious and malevolent loft.

Room

IT'S high time we stopped slagging off celebrity Scots who hightail it south.

Suddenly I flee..to London

Mason's director's notes declare that, when she first set out to make the film, "I thought it would have a happy ending: the war resisters would be granted sanctuary in Canada--the Canada I was born into in 1968; a Canada that opened its doors to American refugees fleeing another unjust war." She makes no distinction between draft dodgers and those who voluntarily enlisted in the army, only to hightail it once they were asked to do their duty.

Government rants: we're used to anti-American films. But why are taxpayers funding them?

My preference, actually, was to hightail it out of the store, completely overwhelmed.

EDIT THYSELF

And when his job was done, Dana didn't hop into an SUV and hightail it to the relative calm of West Jerusalem like his counterparts in the foreign press corps.

Death of a journalist: Mazen Dana was shot by U.S. troops while filming in Iraq

Witnesses saw two men hightail it in a pickup truck with a 136-pound, 6-foot-tall Mr.

QUOTES

"Then you take that cage and you put it in the middle of a city, you open it, and you hightail it out of there.

Caging the crazy: "supermax" confinement under attack

"If the canaries fell dead, the miners would hightail it out of there," Scannell said.

The smoking gun

At the first whiff of grapeshot, they'd hightail it backwards and leave you to face the music on your own.

Wheeler dealing by the guardians of justice (web)

Talking of which, it was time to hightail it over that wide, wide High Street to the main music venue at Arc, The Point and a solo show from I Am Kloot singer, John Bramwell.

On the beat

Bengaluru, May 15 -- Leading file-sharing service Hightail (formerly YouSendIt) today announced its continued localization efforts through the opening of an office in Bangalore, India.