hightail it

• high-tail it

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hightail it (third-person singular simple present hightails it, present participle hightailing it, simple past and past participle hightailed it)

1. (informal, chiefly Canada, US) To hurry or run; often, to flee.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:move quickly, Thesaurus:flee

   He started to hightail it out of there, but I stopped him at the door.

   The cat hightailed it out of the bushes.

   • 2002 March 11, Michael Chapman; Matthew Chapman, “Strong Bad Email #17: studying”, in Homestar Runner‎, spoken by Strong Bad (Matthew Chapman):

     […] I suggest you hightail it over to your girlfriend's house ASAP, man!

   • 2004, Rex Pickett, Sideways, St. Martin's Griffin, →ISBN, page 292:

     "Great! A guy getting off a night shift who hasn't been laid in years finds his wife in flagrante with some hamburger-faced guy who hightails it out the front door in his underwear. We're walking into a hornet's nest, Jackson."

   • 2021 February 3, Drachinifel, 21:35 from the start, in Guadalcanal Campaign - Santa Cruz (IJN 2 : 2 USN)‎, archived from the original on 4 December 2022:

     Whilst sinking, there was still a small chance that Hornet might be towed out of the danger zone and then reboarded, but, by now, the Japanese Navy surface forces were getting closer, and the order was given to scuttle Hornet instead. But, she proved remarkably hard to actually encourage to sink at any pace but her own. A number of torpedoes and several hundred 5-inch shells later, the two destroyers assigned to the job seemed none the closer to actually finishing it, and they were forced to hightail it out of the area. Shortly after ten o'clock that night, the Japanese forces came across the still-afloat, and still-ablaze, Hornet, but, concluding, at this point, that taking her as a prize wasn't particularly likely, they put four Long Lances into her, and Hornet finally sank just after one-thirty in the morning.

   • 2022 April 5, Michal Leibowitz, “'I Didn't Feel Like Going, but I'm Glad I Did': My Motto of the Moment”, in The New York Times‎, →ISSN:

     I made awkward small talk with my seat neighbor and high-tailed it home before the socializing began in earnest.