Word.ws English Dictionary

get the ball rolling

get the ball rolling verb: to begin; to start some action; to set in motion.

Verb

get the ball rolling (third-person singular simple present gets the ball rolling, present participle getting the ball rolling, simple past got the ball rolling, past participle (UK) got the ball rolling or (US) gotten the ball rolling)

  1. (idiomatic, informal) To begin; to start some action; to set in motion.
    • Did you ever get the ball rolling on your plans to build a shed?
    • The execution of Littlefinger is formal, although his trial admittedly gives us ample opportunity to appreciate the tables finally turning on the man who got the ball rolling on all this bloodshed.2017 August 27, Brandon Nowalk, “Game Of Thrones slows down for the longest, and best, episode of the season (newbies)”, in The Onion AV Club

Synonyms of get the ball rolling

Forms of get the ball rolling

third-person singular presentgets the ball rolling
present participlegetting the ball rolling
pastgot the ball rolling
past participle UKgot the ball rolling
past participle USgotten the ball rolling

Questions about get the ball rolling

What does get the ball rolling mean?
Get the ball rolling means to begin; to start some action; to set in motion.
What part of speech is get the ball rolling?
Get the ball rolling is a verb.
What is the past tense of get the ball rolling?
The past tense of get the ball rolling is got the ball rolling.

Words near get the ball rolling in the dictionary

  1. get stuck in
  2. get stuck into
  3. get stuffed
  4. get sturdy
  5. get taken in
  6. get the ball rolling
  7. get the band back together
  8. get the best of
  9. get the better of
  10. get the bird
  11. get the boot

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: get the ball rolling (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-get the ball rolling.ogg.

Cite this entry: “get the ball rolling.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/get_the_ball_rolling. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.