get off the mark
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
Start doing something or make progress after a slow beginning
Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt
bắt đầu làm việc hoặc đạt tiến bộ sau khởi đầu chậm
Machine-translated — suggest a fix
Literally: leave the starting line
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
The team got off the mark and scored several goals in the second half
AI-drafted example auto-approved by rule (illustrative, not a corpus attestation)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-30; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “get off the mark” mean?
Start doing something or make progress after a slow beginning Literally: leave the starting line
Is “get off the mark” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.