Word.ws English Dictionary

starting gate

starting gate noun: a machine used to ensure a fair start in horse or dog racing by opening doors to allow all the racing animals out at the same time.

Noun

starting gate (plural starting gates)

  1. (dog racing) A machine used to ensure a fair start in horse or dog racing by opening doors to allow all the racing animals out at the same time.
    • Mobile starting-gates and horse-boxes stand parked along the kerbs, and behind every large house, it seems, is a red brick stableyard, gleaming with fresh black-and-white paint and polished steel.1980, AA Book of British Villages, Drive Publications Ltd, page 164
  2. (figuratively) The beginning.

Forms of starting gate

pluralstarting gates

Words formed from starting gate

Questions about starting gate

What does starting gate mean?
Starting gate means a machine used to ensure a fair start in horse or dog racing by opening doors to allow all the racing animals out at the same time.
What part of speech is starting gate?
Starting gate is a noun.
What is the plural of starting gate?
The plural of starting gate is starting gates.

Words near starting gate in the dictionary

  1. starting blocks
  2. starting five
  3. starting fives
  4. starting fluid
  5. starting fluids
  6. starting gate
  7. starting gates
  8. starting grid
  9. starting grids
  10. starting gun
  11. starting guns

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: starting gate (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: “starting gate.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/starting_gate. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.