Word.ws English Dictionary

off the bat

off the bat prepositional phrase: from the start; immediately; right away.

Prepositional phrase

  1. (US, idiomatic) From the start; immediately; right away.
    • hot off the bat; straight off the bat
    • I didn't see anything wrong, off the bat.

Synonyms of off the bat

All synonyms of off the bat

Forms of off the bat

alternative formoff the back

Origin of off the bat

From cricket, baseball, and other sports where a bat is used to strike a ball and the players have to make an immediate decision where to run and what plays to make after a successful strike.

Questions about off the bat

What does off the bat mean?
Off the bat means from the start; immediately; right away.
What part of speech is off the bat?
Off the bat is a prepositional phrase.

Words near off the bat in the dictionary

  1. off tap
  2. off target
  3. off the air
  4. off the back
  5. off the back foot
  6. off the bat
  7. off the beam
  8. off the beaten path
  9. off the beaten track
  10. off the boil
  11. off the books

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: off the bat (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-off the bat.ogg.

Cite this entry: “off the bat.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/off_the_bat. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.