Word.ws English Dictionary

get away with murder

get away with murder verb: to do something bad or illegal and escape the punishment that others would receive.

Verb

get away with murder (third-person singular simple present gets away with murder, present participle getting away with murder, simple past got away with murder, past participle (UK) got away with murder or (US) gotten away with murder)

  1. (excessive) To do something bad or illegal and escape the punishment that others would receive.
    • Just yesterday it was fashionable to be black. Remember? Any black writer could get away with murder, just as any Jewish-American writer can get away with murder.1980, Gore Vidal, Robert J. Stanton, Views from a Window: Conversations with Gore Vidal, L. Stuart, →ISBN, page 245
    • He'd spoil the boy just as we have all spoiled him, and though he's a big strapping fellow and a soldier at that, he'd let Ned get away with murder just as I've done.1984, James Purdy, On Glory's Course, Viking Press, →ISBN, page 147

Forms of get away with murder

third-person singular presentgets away with murder
present participlegetting away with murder
pastgot away with murder
past participle UKgot away with murder
past participle USgotten away with murder

Questions about get away with murder

What does get away with murder mean?
Get away with murder means to do something bad or illegal and escape the punishment that others would receive.
What part of speech is get away with murder?
Get away with murder is a verb.
What is the past tense of get away with murder?
The past tense of get away with murder is got away with murder.

Words near get away with murder in the dictionary

  1. get around
  2. get around to
  3. get at
  4. get away
  5. get away with
  6. get away with murder
  7. get away with you
  8. get back
  9. get back at
  10. get back on the horse
  11. get back on the horse that bucked one

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: get away with murder (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-get away with murder.ogg.

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