Word.ws English Dictionary

getting away with

getting away with is the present participle and gerund of get away with.

Meaning of get away with

Verb

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

  1. To get away, or escape, taking (something) with one.
    • The thieves got away with a million pounds' worth of jewellery.
  2. (idiomatic) To escape punishment for doing something objectionable.
    • Do you think we could get away with taking Dad’s car?
  3. (broadly, colloquial) To avoid the consequences of doing something by an easier method.
    • It's warm today, so you can probably get away with just wearing a short-sleeved shirt.

Questions about getting away with

What is getting away with the present participle and gerund of?
Getting away with is the present participle and gerund of get away with.

Words near getting away with in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: getting away with (page history and authors); get away with (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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Cite this entry: “getting away with.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/getting_away_with. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.