off the bat
English edit
Etymology edit
From cricket, baseball, and other sports where a bat is used to strike a ball and the players have to make an immediate decision where to run and what plays to make after a successful strike.
Pronunciation edit
Audio (AU) (file)
Prepositional phrase edit
- (US, idiomatic) From the start; immediately; right away.
- hot off the bat straight off the bat
- I didn't see anything wrong, off the bat.
- 2023 November 29, Richard Foster, “Tyne & Wear Metro goes with the flow”, in RAIL, number 997, page 35:
- "We're not going to uplift the frequency until we've got the new trains. But what we've seen straight off the bat has been a big winner for our customers."