Quick links
hightail (it)
Informal
DCHP-1 (pre-1967)
Entry from the DCHP-1 (pre-1967)
This entry may contain outdated or offensive information, terms, and examples.
v.
move as fast as possible, usually in departing or retreating from a place.
Quotations
1928
A glimpse through my binoculars of a string of red-brown bodies high-tailing it through the bush was all that could be seen of the disembarkation.
1953
"I want to hightail. I'm not staying where I'm treated like dirt."
1958
. . . the surviving pilots jettisoned their bombs on a Sunderland housing development and hightailed back to Norway.
1960
Many of them, as soon as they can scrape together their return fare, hightail it back to their native lands where . . . breadlines for the jobless are unknown and unimaginable. . . .