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steal a march. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
steal a march, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say
steal a march in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word
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English
Pronunciation
Verb
steal a march (third-person singular simple present steals a march, present participle stealing a march, simple past stole a march, past participle stolen a march)
- (intransitive, idiomatic) To gain an advantage unobserved.
1759 August 1, Horace Walpole, Letter to Sir Horace Mann:Fifty thousand men cannot easily steal a march over the sea.
1771, [Tobias Smollett], “Letter to Sir Watkin Phillips, May 6”, in The Expedition of Humphry Clinker , volume I, Dublin: A. Leathley, , →OCLC, page 92:You muſt know, ſhe yeſterday wanted to ſteal a march of poor Liddy, and went to breakfaſt in the Room without any other companion than her dog, […]
1883, George MacDonald, chapter 67, in Donal Grant:He enjoyed the idea of stealing a march on society, and seeing the sons he had left at such a disadvantage behind him, ruffling it, in spite of absurd law, with the foolish best.
2023 May 25, David Smith, “Failure to launch: Twitter glitches deal double blow to Elon Musk and Ron DeSantis”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:For Musk it looked like an easy win in his effort to make Twitter the public square, especially one that attracts rightwing blowhards and steal a march on Fox News.
- (intransitive, idiomatic) To start early.
They stole a march by taking non-merchandise inventory on January 2.
1905, Jack London, All Gold Canyon:In the morning he stole a march on the sun, for he had finished breakfast when its first rays caught him.
See also