hightailed; hightailing; hightails
: to move at full speed or rapidly often in making a retreat
—usually used with it
hightailed it out of there
Examples of hightail in a Sentence
when a fight broke out, we hightailed it out of the bar
Recent Examples on the Web
Yesterday’s pangrams were alighting, annihilating, halting, hightailing and lathing.
—
David Leonhardt, New York Times, 6 Jan. 2025
Seeking solace and a renewal of her seasonal spirit, Angelina and her firecracker assistant Monique (Zenzi Williams) hightail it to upstate New York.
—Courtney Howard, Variety, 17 Nov. 2022
Families with little kids often hightail it out, but the native of Spain wanted to settle down in a walkable city with a European flair.
—Heather Knight, San Francisco Chronicle, 8 Dec. 2021
According to Postal Service data crunched by the real estate firm CBRE, those who picked up stakes during the pandemic were less likely to hightail to the hinterlands than to move to neighboring, less-dense cities, slightly farther from the downtown core.
—Aarian Marshall, Wired, 29 Apr. 2021
See All Example Sentences for hightail
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David Leonhardt, New York Times, 6 Jan. 2025
Seeking solace and a renewal of her seasonal spirit, Angelina and her firecracker assistant Monique (Zenzi Williams) hightail it to upstate New York.
—Courtney Howard, Variety, 17 Nov. 2022
Families with little kids often hightail it out, but the native of Spain wanted to settle down in a walkable city with a European flair.
—Heather Knight, San Francisco Chronicle, 8 Dec. 2021
According to Postal Service data crunched by the real estate firm CBRE, those who picked up stakes during the pandemic were less likely to hightail to the hinterlands than to move to neighboring, less-dense cities, slightly farther from the downtown core.
—Aarian Marshall, Wired, 29 Apr. 2021
See All Example Sentences for hightail
Cite this Entry
“Hightail.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hightail. Accessed 30 Oct. 2025.
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