quick/slow off the mark

phrase

: quick or slow to act or to understand something

As soon as the opportunity arose, he was quick off the mark in exploiting it.

I was slow off the mark and missed my chance.

Examples of quick/slow off the mark in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

The home side was slow off the mark to start the second period, and Cole Koepke helped Winnipeg regain the lead. — Corey Masisak, Denver Post, 29 Mar. 2026

Even though Google has been AI-first for nearly a decade, there is still time for businesses less quick off the mark to catch up. — Noam Toister, Forbes.com, 12 Sep. 2025

The epigraph page alone gestures toward the Gospel of Luke, Cosa Nostra murders, communist atrocities and, for anyone still slow off the mark, Dachau, Auschwitz and Buchenwald. — Louis Bayard, Washington Post, 19 Aug. 2023

Rapidly developing China is enjoying a golden age of dinosaur discoveries, but Xing said that paleontologists like him have to be quick off the mark. — Katie Hunt, CNN, 23 July 2022

Producers, theater owners and artistic directors haven’t been quick off the mark. — Los Angeles Times, 16 June 2021

British medics were quick off the mark with early approvals for the Pfizer-BioNTech and AstraZeneca-Oxford University vaccines, and the roll-out has recently sped up. — The Economist, 16 Jan. 2021

The government has faced criticism from leading scientists, labor unions and opposition parties for being slow off the mark in securing the vaccines. — S'thembile Cele, Bloomberg.com, 15 Jan. 2021