steal a march

English edit

steal a march (third-person singular simple present steals a march, present participle stealing a march, simple past stole a march, past participle stolen a march)

(intransitive, idiomatic) To gain an advantage unobserved.
- 1759 August 1, Horace Walpole, Letter to Sir Horace Mann‎^[1]:
  Fifty thousand men cannot easily steal a march over the sea.
- 1771, [Tobias Smollett], “Letter to Sir Watkin Phillips, May 6”, in The Expedition of Humphry Clinker […], volume I, Dublin: […] A. Leathley, […], →OCLC, page 92:
  You muſt know, ſhe yeſterday wanted to ſteal a march of poor Liddy, and went to breakfaſt in the Room without any other companion than her dog, […]
- 1883, George MacDonald, chapter 67, in Donal Grant:
  He enjoyed the idea of stealing a march on society, and seeing the sons he had left at such a disadvantage behind him, ruffling it, in spite of absurd law, with the foolish best.
- 2023 May 25, David Smith, “Failure to launch: Twitter glitches deal double blow to Elon Musk and Ron DeSantis”, in The Guardian‎^[2], →ISSN:
  For Musk it looked like an easy win in his effort to make Twitter the public square, especially one that attracts rightwing blowhards and steal a march on Fox News.
(intransitive, idiomatic) To start early.
They stole a march by taking non-merchandise inventory on January 2.
- 1905, Jack London, All Gold Canyon:
  In the morning he stole a march on the sun, for he had finished breakfast when its first rays caught him.