two steps ahead
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Pronunciation edit
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- (idiomatic) Having cleverly anticipated what others will do or think.
- 2009, Elaine Biech -, The 2010 Pfeiffer Annual: Training, →ISBN:
- During strategy discussions,I feel two steps ahead and often believe discussions are wasting time and slowing progress.
- 2013, Hadley Hoover, Storm Path, →ISBN, page 9:
- “You'll need more help than Dave and Frank can give, just to get it down from the truck, over the lawn and inside,” she said practically. “Two steps ahead of you, M'lady. I stopped by the grocery store, so Dave knows to come home and help."
- 2017 July 30, Ali Barthwell, “Ice and fire finally meet in a front-loaded episode of Game Of Thrones (newbies)”, in The Onion AV Club[1]:
- She dismisses Littlefinger’s advice to prepare for every possible outcome and see the world as a place of unimaginable horror. Littlefinger is telling her to be a little more like Cersei, always two steps ahead. The difference between Sansa and Cersei is that she has no desire to repeat what has been done to her as an act of vengeance.
- Just barely escaping.
- 2011, William W. Johnstone, Law of the Mountain Man, →ISBN:
- He's supposed to have raped and kilt a woman when he was 'bout fourteen or fifteen and had to flee, two steps ahead of the law
- 2015, Kim Newman, The Night Mayor, →ISBN:
- From the dryout farm, Tunney had moved down to the border, mooched around in cantinas for a while, then left the country two steps ahead of the sheriff of some Rio Grande jerkwater.
- 2017, James S. Donnelly, Jr, The Land and the People of Nineteenth-Century Cork, →ISBN:
- Desperately trying to keep two steps ahead of the bill collector, tenants frequently neglected to request permission for these sales, and they or those whom they duped into partin with their money usually suffered the consequences.